Respondent Is Unfit to Conduct Business in California

CPSD alleges that Titan is unfit to operate, because Titan failed to answer all statements on the application truthfully, failed to adequately maintain records, and failed to respond to CPSD's data requests. Respondents note that there is no disagreement that Titan updated its contact person information and filed its annual report. Respondents also note that there is some uncertainty as to the exact requirements for tariff filings and whether the tariffs submitted with the application were sufficient. Finally, Respondents note that CPSD acknowledged that Titan had responded to all outstanding data requests. CPSD counters that these omissions were only resolved when they were pointed out to Titan and that late compliance is irrelevant to disproving the violations. Titan states that technical violations that have been corrected do not, in and of themselves, substantiate that Titan is unfit to operate.

We concur that technical violations alone are insufficient to find Respondents unfit to conduct business in California. However, CPSD's investigation demonstrates that allegations of consumer violations and failure to comply with state commission regulations were pervasive when Bucci operated ACI. Although we only find two violations of Rule 1 for Respondents' failure to disclose all the pending investigations and actual sanctions which had occurred at the time the application was filed, that failure occurred because ACI lacked a correct address or phone number for service of process. An interexchange carrier with numerous investigations for questionable business practices that also became insolvent is the type of business that prompted us in the registration process to question the previous experience of current applicants.

The record does reflect that Respondents operated Titan's DSL and long distance services in California for less than a year without engendering consumer complaints. Titan currently is not providing telecommunications services in California and ceased providing services at some point during the last six months in 2000, because it lost most of its customers to attrition and its wholesale DSL provider went bankrupt. The pattern of failing to provide an agent for service of process has persisted. In addition, Respondents have failed to timely comply with regulatory requirements. Although Respondents corrected their failure to comply with those requirements in advance of these hearings, including providing a correct agent for service of process, it is unclear whether Respondents would continue to comply absent the existence of a proceeding where Respondents' activities are monitored. There is ample evidence to show that Bucci's prior experience with ACI and Titan's technical violations render Respondents unfit to resell interLATA services in California.