XIII. Service Quality, Marketing, Disclosure, and Administrative Requirements
Service quality standards are subject to General Order 133-B. A number of other carrier-specific service standards also have developed over time. These issues are under active consideration in R.02-12-004.
Marketing rules are unrelated to service quality. These rules are squarely before us in this proceeding.
A. Position of Parties
AT&T contends that service quality regulations and marketing rules, such as customer disclosure rules, should apply uniformly to all carriers.760 It proposes that the Commission affirm that service quality regulation is uniform for all carriers, and any existing service quality requirements not uniformly applied to all carriers should be eliminated.761
Similarly, AT&T urges the Commission to adopt a policy in this phase that any customer disclosure information requirements should be applied uniformly across all market participants to the extent reasonably feasible.762 It contends that any existing customer disclosure information requirements not uniformly required of all carriers should be eliminated.763 At the workshop, AT&T concurred with DRA's proposal to discuss the specifics about monitoring reports in a follow-up workshop and address service quality issues in Phase II of this proceeding.764
Verizon discusses service quality as it is reviewed within the monitoring reports. In general, Verizon maintains that URF-specific monitoring reports should avoid duplication, and be limited to those that are consistent with the OIR's goals and vital to studying the effectiveness of the adopted framework.765 According to Verizon, its proposed framework is self-effectuating and, therefore, can be implemented expeditiously without the need to address specific details in Phase II.766 Verizon's proposal for Phase II is for the Commission to have the parties, through workshops, quickly identify any URF-specific monitoring reports that are needed to replace the existing NRF monitoring regime.767
Frontier and SureWest observe that customer service is an important concern of the Commission: one in which it has achieved excellent results by constantly prioritizing the issue.768 The mid-sized ILECs add that no party disputes this contention, and no matter what framework the Commission ultimately adopts, this priority should not change.769
Frontier and SureWest caution, however, that this proceeding should not be diverted or delayed in order to investigate or devise new rules regarding ILEC or industry service quality.770 Instead, they recommend that the issue be referred to R.02-12-004, the existing rulemaking addressing service quality issues. Frontier and SureWest add that the Commission should make any future service quality rules applicable industry-wide.771
DRA comments that the record on URF monitoring requirements was poorly developed.772 Consequently, it recommends that related details be developed in a follow-up workshop in which the experts compare notes, ask each other questions, and discuss the issue.773 The monitoring requirements then need to be tailored to whatever pricing scheme is adopted. DRA contends that until the Commission selects an overall regulatory framework, it is very difficult to talk concretely about what to monitor.774 It also proposes that parties address service quality issues in Phase II.775
DisabRA points out that many Californians with disabilities are inadequately informed about what accessible and disability-related services and products are offered by providers. Even where providers do offer accessible products or services, or there is adaptive equipment that makes such products or services functionally accessible, "[a] lot of people with disabilities do not know that there's anything available to them."776
Consequently, DisabRA recommends that the Commission require all providers to inform customers and potential customers with disabilities about the accessibility of their products and services, including the availability of adaptive equipment, and about all disability-related products and services that they offer.777 This information could be disseminated in the same ways that other required information is disseminated to consumers - on the providers' websites and through bills and other mailings.
DisabRA further urges the Commission to monitor the quality of services provided to Californians with disabilities.778 In this phase of the proceeding, DisabRA asks the Commission to acknowledge that specific monitoring and auditing requirements are necessary in order to ensure that Californians with disabilities receive reasonably high quality service.779 It suggests that details of such requirements can be established in Phase II.780
Finally, DisabRA asks the Commission to extend the Deaf and Disabled Trust Program (DDTP) to cover additional technologies.781 It maintains that such an extension would encourage investment in adaptive technology, greatly improve access to the network for the disabled, and expand the telecommunications options for the disabled community.782 DisabRA urges the Commission to recognize in this phase that both the maintenance and expansion/extension of the DDTP program are necessary in order to ensure that Californians with disabilities have access to affordable and accessible telecommunications services.783
B. Discussion: Service Quality Issues are Best Addressed in R.02-12-004; Asymmetric Marketing, Disclosure and Administrative Requirements Are No Longer Necessary
In the OIR, the Commission specifically excluded issues related to the quality of service provided by AT&T and Verizon to other carriers.784 The Commission also deferred a long set of service quality issues to Phase 3 of the NRF (R.01-09-001/I.01-09-002) proceeding.785
Subsequently, on May 25, 2006, the Commission issued D.06-05-024, which resolved all of the outstanding issues of the fourth triennial review.786 This decision noted that the regulatory framework adopted in this proceeding likely would replace NRF. After receiving comments from the parties, the Commission closed R.01-09-001 and I.01-09-002. We held that most of the issues were superseded by issues in this proceeding.
On a separate track, the Commission opened Service Quality OIR 02-12-004 at the end of year 2002. There the Commission noted that it first developed industry-wide telecommunications service quality rules in 1970, and formulated standard telephone service indices for all telephone carriers787 by establishing General Order 133.788 Incremental changes were made to General Order 133 in 1983, resulting in General Order 133-A,789 790 and to General Order 133-A in 1992, resulting in General Order 133-B. 791
In order to reflect current technological and business conditions, the service quality OIR now seeks to adopt revisions to existing service quality measures and standards792 applicable to telecommunications carriers.793 The Service Quality OIR set out the following goals for the proceeding: to determine the types of services for which measures and standards should apply; the kind of measures and standards that should apply to those services; the methods for calculating measures; the minimum levels that measured parameters of service should meet (i.e., standards); when and how the measures should be reported to this Commission; and the mechanisms that will be used to ensure compliance with established requirements.794 As evidenced by our discussion of the position of the parties, the parties in this proceeding did not present anything in detail regarding service quality issues like these described in the Service Quality OIR.
Rather than attempt to take up these issues today, we believe that the Service Quality OIR offers the most appropriate venue for determining how the Commission should act to promote service quality in this new competitive telecommunications setting. We, therefore, defer all service quality issues to that proceeding. Further issues relating to the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program are to be addressed in R.06-05-028, our Universal Service rulemaking on public policy programs.
Finally, we eliminate all asymmetric requirements concerning marketing, disclosure, or administrative processes. If a more restrictive marketing, disclosure, or administrative requirement applies to an ILEC, then the ILEC can modify its tariffs to conform to those of a CLEC. Similarly, if a more restrictive marketing, disclosure, or administrative requirement applies to a CLEC, then the CLEC can modify its tariffs to conform to those of an ILEC. Conditions adopted in this decision that account for subsidization of basic residential service are exceptions to this general policy.
760 Pacific Bell Opening Brief at 71-72.
761 Comparison of URF Proposals; Pacific Bell Opening Brief at 4, 72-73.
762 Pacific Bell Opening Brief at 71-72.
763 Id.
764 WS-2 Tr. at 172.
765 Verizon Opening Brief at 4,5.
766 Id. at 4.
767 Verizon Opening Brief at 4-5.
768 SureWest Opening Brief at 32; Citizens Opening Brief at 28.
769 SureWest Opening Brief at 32; Citizens Opening Brief at 28.
770 SureWest Opening Brief at 32; Citizens Opening Brief at 28.
771 SureWest Opening Brief at 32; Citizens Opening Brief at 28.
772 WS-2 Tr. at 63.
773 Id.
774 Id.
775 Comparison of URF Proposals.
776 DRA Opening Brief at 23-27.
777 DisabRA Opening Brief at 24.
778 Id. at 23.
779 Id.
780 Id.
781 Id. at 26.
782 Id.
783 Id.
784 OIR, App. A.
785 OIR, App. A.
786 Decision Closing the Proceeding and Canceling the Rehearing of Decision (D.) 03-10-088 ordered by D.04-07-036 and D.04-12-024, D.06-05-024, 2006 Cal. PUC LEXIS.
787 One-half of service penalty of 0.2 percent in rate-of-return imposed by D 75873 removed upon finding that Gen. Tel. Co. of Cal . has improved its services; Gen. Tel. Co. of Cal . ordered to submit new survey of adequacy of service in pending Application No. 51904, D.77947 (1970), 71 CPUC 550.
788 Order Instituting Rulemaking on the Commission's Own Motion into the Service Quality Standards for All Telecommunications Carriers and Revisions to General Order 133-B, R.02-12-004 (2002), 2002 Cal. PUC LEXIS 868 (hereinafter R.02-12-004) (citing General Order No. 133, governing standards of telephone service, adopted, D.80082, 73 CPUC 426).
789 R.02-12-004 (citing Investigation on the Commission's own motion into the rates, tolls, rules, charges, operations, practices, contracts, service and facilities of General Telephone Company of California, a California corporation; and of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, a California corporation; and of all telephone corporations listed in Appendix A, attached hereto, D.83-11-062 (1983), 13 CPUC2d 220 (hereinafter D.83-11-062)).
790 R.02-12-004 (citing D.83-11-062).
791 R.02-12-004 (citing In the Matter of Amending Certain Clauses in General Order 133-A, Governing Service Standards for Telephone Companies, D.92-05-056 (1992), 44 CPUC2d 437).
792 "Measures" are the aspects or features of service subject to evaluation and reporting. "Standards" are the minimum acceptable values that measures must meet to be in compliance with the Commission's requirements.
793 Consistent with our Consumer Protection Rules, we define "carrier" under our service quality rules to include all entities, whether certificated or registered, that provide telecommunications-related products or services and are subject to the Commission's jurisdiction pursuant to the Public Utilities Code.
794 R.02-12-004, mimeo at 4.
