V. Service Interruptions

As discussed above, Applicant suspended the service of three customers for part of a day, on or about June 28, 2001, and notified these customers that it would temporarily reinstate full service once they called back with a service order from another carrier. These service interruptions are especially egregious. These customers could not be required to transfer to another provider because Applicant was not authorized to discontinue service. The fact that they had not responded to Applicant's notices and phone calls regarding transfer to another provider is irrelevant. They had every right to expect service to continue, and did not need to respond. Applicant used service interruptions, when its false and misleading notices failed, to effectively discontinue service to these customers without authorization. In addition, nothing in Applicant's local exchange tariffs allows it to discontinue or suspend service when a customer fails to respond to such a notice. Therefore, Applicant also violated its tariffs.