Background
Complainant Telscape Communications, Inc. (Telscape) is a facilities-based competitive local exchange carrier that provides facilities-based and resold local and interexchange telecommunications services to customers in Southern California. Telscape alleges that defendant Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific) has violated the requirements of Pub. Util. Code §§ 451 and 453 by engaging in a variety of anticompetitive practices.
Telscape identifies four broad areas of alleged violations. Telscape claims that Pacific engages in improper "winback" activities directed to customers who switch their service from Pacific to Telscape, including use of customer proprietary network information (CPNI) and offers of discriminatory discounts to customers who are switching their service. Telscape asserts that Pacific solicits false complaints of "slamming," unauthorized switching of a customer's service from Pacific to Telscape, and then reports those false complaints to Telscape and state and federal regulatory agencies. Telscape asserts that Pacific consistently provides inadequate operational support systems (OSS), including inaccurate and untimely wholesale billing and failure to resolve billing disputes promptly.2 Telscape also claims that Pacific participates in denying digital subscriber line (DSL) services to customers who change their local voice service to a competitor.
Pacific rejects Telscape's characterization of the problems alleged in the complaint and denies that its activities are improper. Pacific states that it engages in winback activities, but does not abuse CPNI in its winback practices and does not offer any discounts that are not consistent with its tariffs or otherwise approved by the Commission. Pacific denies that it incites false slamming complaints and asserts that it is required to report any slamming complaints it does receive to Telscape and to regulators. Pacific asserts that some wholesale billing disputes are inevitable, but that problems that do occur are neither systemic nor part of a pattern of anticompetitive practices. Pacific takes the position that its role in the provision of DSL services is consistent with federal law. Pacific also asserts that its compliance with federal law is a complete defense to Telscape's claims of violations of §§ 451 and 453.
2 At the PHC, Telscape stated that although some of the instances of OSS problems cited in its complaint had been resolved, some had not been; new problems had also arisen since the complaint was filed. The problems cited in the complaint will therefore be treated as examples of the more general allegations of anticompetitive conduct based on OSS deficiencies. Telscape may introduce evidence of other OSS problems, or of different aspects of the problems cited in the complaint, at the Evidentiary Hearing (EH).
