XII. Assignment of Proceeding
Loretta M. Lynch is the Assigned Commissioner and Sarah R. Thomas is the assigned ALJ in this phase of this proceeding.
1. Pacific and Verizon had the following number of access lines as of 2001. As of that date, Pacific had more than 4 times the number of access lines as Verizon:
CALIFORNIA LEC YEAR-2001 NUMBER OF ACCESS LINES251
SWITCHED |
NON-SWITCHED |
TOTAL | ||||
COMPANY |
ACCESS LINES |
ACCESS LINES |
ACCESS LINES | |||
|
||||||
PACIFIC BELL |
17,548,599 |
7,858,177 |
25,406,776 | |||
VERIZON CALIFORNIA, INC. |
4,721,336 |
1,621,152 |
6,342,488 |
2. It is helpful to examine the performance of Pacific and Verizon together, because we are able to gain comparative data that we might not otherwise have had.
3. There are several ways the Commission assesses Pacific and Verizon's service quality.
4. The Commission requires telephone utilities providing service in California to make regular reports pursuant to GO 133-B on performance in the areas of installation, network reliability, trouble reports, installation commitments, and answer times.
5. Data collected under GO 133-B are not always comparable among carriers or from year to year. The carriers have made changes from time to time that affect the composition of the data underlying their reported service quality results.
6. Prior to February 1999, Pacific included calls related to billing in reporting its BOAT statistics, but ceased doing so thereafter without informing the Commission of the change. This change has made it impossible to compare Pacific's BOAT performance (without adjustment) either to its own performance over time, to Verizon's performance or to other carriers' performance.
7. GO 133-B does not currently require a carrier to include billing calls in its BOAT results.
8. In R.02-12-004 (the Service Quality OIR), the Commission is considering whether to include billing calls within the GO 133-B standards.
9. The Commission must be able to rely on GO 133-B data to compare a carrier's performance to itself over time. Currently, the carriers' practice does not make such a comparison feasible.
10. Pacific once included DSL-related information in its GO 133-B data, but stopped doing so when it moved its DSL functions into a separate subsidiary. The result of this change means that when we try to compare Pacific's results over time, we end up comparing apples to oranges.
11. Neither Pacific nor Verizon report under GO 133-B the time a customer spends navigating the companies' ARUs/IVRUs before reaching a live operator in their business offices or repairs offices.
12. It is probable that callers spend more time navigating ARU/IVRU menus than during their prescribed wait on hold for a company representative.
13. GO 133-B does not address the use of ARUs/IVRUs.
14. R.02-12-004 is considering answer time reporting where ARUs/IVRUs are used.
15. The carriers' reported BOAT or TRSAT answer times do not include the time a customer spends navigating ARU options.
16. Pacific reviews once per month whether any orders are held for more than 30 days beyond the commitment date ("held orders"). This procedure allows some orders to be held for up to 60 days without those orders being reported as held, a result that is inconsistent with GO 133-B's intent that any order held more than 30 days after the commitment date be reported to the Commission.
17. GO 133-B does not track busy or abandoned calls. R.02-12-004 is considering busy and abandoned calls as part of its consideration of revisions to GO 133-B.
18. The FCC requires carriers to make reports on several aspects of service quality as part of its ARMIS reporting requirements.
19. The ARMIS 43-05 report contains 39 service quality performance measures which track, among other things, whether Pacific or Verizon meet their installation commitments for residential and business customers, trouble reports and repair intervals (e.g., both initial and repeat trouble reports , and the time required to dispatch and complete repairs in response to trouble reports), and switch downtime incidents.
20. The ARMIS 43-06 report tracks customer perceptions of Pacific's and Verizon's service quality.
21. The FCC has required Pacific and Verizon to engage in specific service quality reporting for time-limited periods so that it may monitor service quality impacts that result from these carriers' recent mergers. This reporting is known as MCOT reporting.
22. As a condition of SBC's merger with Ameritech, the FCC required additional quarterly, state-by-state service quality reporting for the period from June 1999 to November 2002. Categories of reporting for retail services include installation and maintenance, switch outages, transmission facility outages, service quality-related complaints, and answer time performance.
23. In late 2000, the FCC notified SBC that, "[t]he quarterly service quality reports filed by SBC Communications, Inc. (`SBC') pursuant to the SBC/Ameritech Merger Order indicate that the quality of service provided by SBC's incumbent local exchange carriers (`LECs') has been deteriorating in several states since approval of the merger in October 1999." The FCC representative also stated that, "I am concerned that SBC's performance data indicates that consumers in SBC's region are experiencing increasing installation delays, longer repair times, and greater difficulties contacting SBC's incumbent LECs about service quality and other issues. I note also that consumer complaints regarding service quality have increased in recent months in spite of SBC's explicit commitment when the merger was pending to devote greater resources to service quality after the merger closed."
24. In its MCOT reporting for the period July 1999 to June 2001, Pacific shows negative spikes in California in the following areas: 1) answer time performance (business customers), 2) trouble report rate per 100 lines (especially business customers), 3) percentage of installation orders completed within 5 working days (especially residential customers), and 4) percentage of installation orders delayed over 30 days (business customers).
25. The FCC imposed a 36-month reporting requirement as a condition of the 2000 GTE merger with Bell Atlantic that created Verizon. The FCC requirement provides the Commission with information not otherwise available in GO 133-B. For example, while GO 133-B measures the handling of business office calls, it does not track billing calls even though such calls account for half of the calls to the business office.
26. According to the FCC data, Verizon showed negative spikes or trends in California on several service quality measures at the following times during the period July 2000-June 2001, as compared to the rest of that period: 1) percentage of dissatisfied customers (with business customers reporting 50% dissatisfaction in November 2000 and residential customers reporting 20% dissatisfaction in March 2001), 2) answer times (with business answer times in the 50-60 second range in September 2000 and in the 40-50 second range in January 2001 - as compared to a GO 133-B standard of 20 seconds); and residential times exceeding 20 seconds in November 2000 [30 seconds] and January 2001 [40 seconds], 3) repair intervals for both residential and business customers spiking in the period January-March 2001, 4) repeat trouble reports spiking for both types of customers in March 2001, and 5) trouble reports per hundred lines spiking in the January-March 2001 time period for residential customers.
27. Customer complaints can provide a useful indication of carrier service quality performance.
28. Verizon's own complaint data appear to be more comprehensive than Pacific's. Pacific keeps track of some complaints that come to its Informal Appeals organization but acknowledged that these complaints are but a small fraction of the total complaints it receives.
29. Pacific tends to keep complaint records at the business office level only when the complaints relate to slamming by other carriers and cramming. Verizon tracks all complaints.
30. The records of the other formal Commission proceedings may, examined together, give clues to patterns of behavior that corroborate other service quality results.
31. The increasing need for Commission intervention to address service quality failures after carriers began operating under NRF may indicate how effective or ineffective NRF is in promoting high quality service.
32. Any formal proceeding that we have conducted since 1989, when we first stated we would be examining service quality as part of our NRF monitoring process, is germane to our assessment.
33. It is appropriate to compare a NRF carrier's service quality results to those of other NRF carriers in reaching conclusions about the first carrier's service quality.
34. It is appropriate to compare one carrier's results with its own results over time in reaching conclusions about that company's service quality.
35. Combining several service quality measures to come up with an aggregate score can mask serious problems. We warned against the dangers of such aggregation in D.01-12-021.
36. Single measures can and do indicate significant areas of service quality decline. We can find significant decline in service quality if an important measure declines relative to past performance.
37. Pacific shows problems with its service quality and related matters in the following areas, as more fully explained in subsequent findings of fact:
· Repair intervals, or the time it takes Pacific to complete repairs once a customer notifies the company of problems, and number of trouble reports, especially reports of service outages,
· Answer times,
· An increasing pace of formal complaints aimed at serious service quality problems and related issues,
· Negative trends in service quality in some of the Commission's informal complaint data,
· A significant deterioration in the perceptions of Pacific's service quality by residential and small business customers,
· Failure by Pacific to file required service quality reports.
38. In Pacific's increasing use of affiliates to offer services formerly provided by the regulated utility, Pacific has posed challenges to our regulatory authority that may be detrimental to our ability to protect service quality.
39. Pacific has in the past claimed that information housed within SBC companies outside of Pacific Bell is beyond the reach of this Commission's jurisdiction. The Commission sanctioned Pacific for one such claim.
40. Pacific has transferred many of the functions previously carried out in the regulated utility to unregulated affiliates such as SBC Operations.
41. In connection with the Commission's examination of Pacific's pricing of UNEs available to competitive local exchange carriers in A.01-02-024, Pacific refused to produce information supporting the UNE costs it sought to recover in other states for SBC-affiliated companies, contending such information was beyond the regulatory reach of the Commission. The Assigned Commissioner sanctioned Pacific for such conduct.
42. Moving services and functions to affiliates not only makes more difficult the Commission's job of ensuring good service quality, it also undermines the consistency and validity of service quality information reported under GO 133-B and elsewhere.
43. Transfer of functions formerly provided by the regulated utility to unregulated affiliates may be detrimental to service quality and our ability to detect that deterioration.
44. Pacific transferred certain services previously offered by the regulated utility, such as DSL service, to affiliates such as ASI.
45. Service quality information, such as complaints and trouble reports related to Pacific's DSL service that was previously tracked by Pacific, were no longer included in Pacific's service quality information after Pacific transferred the service to its affiliate.
46. A carrier may increase revenues by cutting the costs of providing service, including basic telephone service, and not just by raising rates. Such cost cuts may cause service quality to deteriorate.
47. Competition under NRF does not alone ensure high quality service, and we must continue to be vigilant in monitoring NRF LECs' performance if we are to preserve and enhance service quality.
48. The pace of serious formal complaints involving and decided against Pacific has increased under NRF.
49. CAB's informal complaint data about Pacific show several negative trends.
50. The mismatches ORA found in Pacific's service quality data were due not to Pacific's misrepresentations, but rather to differences between the raw data ORA examined and the data Pacific uses to report to regulators.
51. ORA did not establish that Pacific misreports its installation service results or that Pacific's installation data are inaccurate.
52. Pacific knew that ORA had requested raw data to allow it to test Pacific's results.
53. According to the ARMIS data in the graphs we derived, Pacific's ARMIS performance on installation intervals (residential and business) was generally consistent over the 1994-2001 period.
54. Pacific's installation interval performance was slightly worse than Verizon's in 2000-01, according to the ARMIS data.
55. Pacific's residential installation "commitments met" data were consistently good from 1993-2001, with the exception of a dip in "commitments met" in late 1997.
56. For Pacific's business customers, the percentage of commitments met declined notably from 1997 through 2000, improving again in 2001.
57. There is not enough evidence in the record to conclude that Pacific is closing installation orders prematurely. Pacific does not address whether it ever closes out an order containing multiple lines for installation after the first line is installed, and then opens a new order for the subsequent lines.
58. Pacific includes vertical services orders in its data. Pacific can install these services quickly and in automated fashion without dispatching a service technician, so including vertical services orders skews its data toward shorter installation intervals.
59. The record lacks evidence on whether Verizon also includes vertical services orders in its data, so we are unable to conclude that Pacific's and Verizon's data are comparable.
60. Pacific did not show that the improvements in installation intervals was the result of actual improvement in performance instead of the result of an increasing proportion of "short interval" vertical services orders in the mix of installation interval data reported under ARMIS.
61. ORA's discovery of "duplicate" records does not establish that there are errors in Pacific's data.
62. ORA's discovery of "anomalous records" without "commit dates" does not establish that there are errors in Pacific's data.
63. Based on ARMIS data, Pacific was the second worst performer in terms of held orders when compared with the other 12 SBC companies in other states.
64. During the NRF audit period, Pacific's ARMIS performance showed periods of decline and improvement for residential and business installation intervals.
65. For the period 1994-2001, according to ARMIS data, Pacific's performance was worse than Verizon's in all repair interval categories. These categories are: 1) initial out of service repair intervals - residence; 2) initial out of service repair intervals - business; 3) initial all other repair intervals - residence; 4) initial all other repair intervals - business; 5) repeat out of service repair intervals - residence; 6) repeat out of service repair intervals - business; 7) repeat all other repair intervals - residence; and 8) repeat all other repair intervals - business.
66. During the period 1994-2001, according to ARMIS data, Pacific generally performed worse than Verizon on trouble report numbers, although there were two categories in which Verizon performed worse and one in which the results were mixed. Pacific's results were worse than Verizon in 1) initial out of service trouble reports - residence; 2) initial out of service trouble reports - business; 3) repeat out of service trouble reports - residence; 4) repeat out of service trouble reports - business; and 5) repeat all other trouble252 reports - residence.
67. Pacific's 1994-2001 ARMIS trouble report results were better than Verizon's in the area of 1) initial all other trouble reports - business; and 2) repeat all other trouble reports - business.
68. Pacific's results on initial all other trouble reports - residence were better than Verizon's during the period 1994-98, and exceeded Verizon's results in 1999-2001.
69. While the intervals of time Pacific's customers wait for repairs decreased starting in 2001 as reported in Pacific's ARMIS 43-05 reports, Pacific's performance was worse in 2000 than in 1994 on several important measures. It is too soon to know what the trend will be in the future based solely on Pacific's 2001 results.
70. ORA filed a complaint against Pacific in November 2000, which may have caused Pacific to be more vigilant from then on.
71. Pacific's business customers' initial out-of-service repair intervals, as reported in ARMIS, rose from 11.56 hours in 1994 to 16.5 hours in 2000. While the interval dropped to 12.5 hours in 2001, it is too soon to tell if the trend toward improvement will continue.
72. Pacific's business customers' repeat out-of-service repair intervals, as reported in ARMIS, rose from 12.9 hours in 1994 to 18.5 hours in 2000. Once again, performance improved in 2001 - with the interval dropping to 13.9 hours during that year - but we remain concerned about the trend.
73. Pacific's residential customers' initial "all other trouble reports," as reported in ARMIS, rose from 622,310 in 1994 to 1,127,512 in 1999, dropping to 916,431 in 2001. This is equal to 6.53 reports per 100 lies per year in 1994, 10.37 reports per hundred lines per year in 1999, and 8.32 reports per 100 lines per year in 2001. It is too soon to tell whether the recent improvements will continue consistently.
74. Pacific's repeat "all other trouble reports," as reported in ARMIS, rose from 125,231 in 1994 to 162,035 in 2001. This is equal to 1.31 reports per 100 lines per year in 1994 and 1.47 reports per 100 lines per year in 2001.
75. Pacific's residential customers' initial and repeat all other trouble reports per million lines rose from 65,286 reports in 1994 to 83,153 reports in 2001 (an increase of 27.4%). This is equal to 7.84 reports per 100 lines per year in 1994 and 9.79 reports per 100 lines per year in 2001.
76. Pacific's ARMIS 43-05 data showed that the number of Pacific's initial trouble reports from residential customers for conditions other than out-of-service conditions sharply increased from 1994-2001. These trouble reports contain complaints about problems of poor call quality, call interruption and static on the line - clearly problems of consequence to customers.
77. Pacific showed a high level of repeat problems shortly after making an initial repair. In 2000, at least 2.73% of residential repeat out-of-service repairs occurred within 24 hours of a previous repair; the number in 2001 was 2.38%. In 2001, the number of repeat problems within one week of a previous repair was 6.76%, 8.84% within two weeks, and 10.10% within three weeks. It may be that these figures represented different problems for the same customers. Whatever the problem, these high numbers negatively affected customers.
78. The disruption caused by a repair is probably one of the more serious events that can occur in a carrier's relationship with its customers. A second repair within such a short time is an even more serious disruption.
79. The relationship of Pacific's repeat out-of-service trouble reports relative to its initial out-of-service trouble reports is worse than that same relationship for other California carriers. Pacific compares unfavorably to Verizon on this measure.
80. While the trend in Pacific's repair intervals and trouble reports was positive in 2001, it is too soon to tell where the trends are headed.
81. In February 1999, Pacific changed its practices regarding inclusion of billing calls in its BOAT reporting, making comparison of its year-over-year performance difficult. Pacific now excludes billing calls, but included them in its GO 133-B reporting up until February 1999.
82. TURN's combination of Pacific's GO 133-B data and its billing call data showed that Pacific's combined performance on GO 133-B and billing calls was 68% or less answered in 20 seconds during the years 2000 and 2001.
83. Pacific's BOAT results during the period 1991-2001 show that in virtually all years, the percentage of calls Pacific answered within 20 seconds was below the standard.
84. The BOAT measure was added to GO 133-B in 1992, and the minimum standard, measured as the percent of calls answered within 20 seconds, was progressively increased from 70% beginning on December 3, 1992, to 75% (beginning October 4, 1993), to 80% (beginning July 5, 1994).
85. The BOAT data (adjusted for Pacific to include billing calls for the period beginning May 1999 and thereafter to make the data comparable for all years and for both companies), show that in all years but 1993 (when the carriers reported the same results) and 1997 (when Verizon reported slightly poorer results), Pacific's BOAT figures were worse than Verizon's.
86. The time to answer calls to a Pacific business office, including billing inquiries, has increased since 1999. This is a degradation of service quality.
87. Pacific's and Verizon's TRSAT results are mixed over the period 1991-2001. On average, Pacific's annual TRSAT performance was below the standard from 1991 through 1998, and has been below Verizon's performance since 1996, when its performance reached its low ebb.
88. There have been at least six proceedings finding serious problems with Pacific's service quality since 1995, as compared to two proceedings in the five-year period from January 1990-December 1994. The pace of meritorious service quality formal proceedings against Pacific has increased since 1995.
89. In connection with A.92-05-002/D.94-06-011, Pacific's witness conceded that Pacific could not substantiate that it was in full compliance with a Commission requirement imposed in D.94-06-011, but cited D.97-03-067 for the proposition that the Commission did not find Pacific to be out of compliance with the latter requirement. An examination of D.97-03-067 reveals no such statement by the Commission.
90. In A.96-04-038/D.97-03-067, regarding the Pacific Telesis/SBC merger, ORA's predecessor (DRA) presented evidence of Pacific's poor performance on its TRSAT and BOAT reports. DRA also claimed that an inadequate workforce caused service deterioration in the TRSAT.
91. The informal complaint data for Pacific for 1995-July 12, 2001 was as set forth in Appendix C to R.01-09-001, the decision initiating this proceeding. The data was compiled from summary reports maintained in the database of the Commission's Consumer Affairs Branch.
92. Organization of Pacific's informal complaint data into categories more closely designed to show service quality complaints shows significant fluctuation year over year in Pacific's performance. Informal complaints were at their worst in 1997-98 and 2000. Thus, any problems Pacific may have are not remote in time, but rather stem from recent years. The ratio of Pacific's service quality complaints to overall complaints has fluctuated significantly over the years, with 1997-98 and 2000 the worst years in this category.
93. Pacific's internal tracking of service quality, by and large, is no more specific or rigorous than the regulatory requirements we and the FCC impose.
94. Our reporting requirements, and those other regulators impose, are critical to the process of tracking and evaluating service quality. Commission oversight is essential to our ability to monitor and control service quality.
95. It is not clear that Pacific would maintain the specific records we require if we did not require it to report its results.
96. Verizon's service quality managers view the GO 133-B and FCC reporting requirements as a minimum. Pacific's practice of only tracking what the Commission requires compares unfavorably to Verizon's more rigorous internal tracking system.
97. In compiling its survey of Pacific's and Verizon's customers, ORA followed the Commission's direction in not changing the survey questions.
98. ORA's main purpose in using its survey was to gain comparative data. It would have been difficult to evaluate the meaning of changes in survey responses over time if there had been a change in the survey itself.
99. Pacific's witness could not identify a study backing up his contention that dissatisfied customers are more likely to respond to a survey than satisfied customers.
100. While ORA did not follow up with customers in an attempt to increase the size of the sample of customers taking the survey, it did not follow up in 1995 either. ORA's action made the results of the 1995 and 2001 surveys more comparable.
101. For the purpose ORA intended - comparison between Pacific's performance in 1995 and its performance in 2001 - Pacific's criticisms of the ORA survey lack merit.
102. The ORA survey of Pacific showed serious problems in residential and small business customers' perceptions of Pacific's service quality. The survey found that according to its customers, Pacific's quality of service declined in the period between 1995 and 2001. Of 36 questions in the survey germane to service quality, the responses to 23 questions showed a difference between customer perceptions in 1995 and 2001. Of these 23, in only 4 questions did customers choose a more favorable response in 2001 than they had in 1995. In 19 questions, the results were worse in 2001 to a statistically significant extent than they were in 1995.
103. In its survey, ORA used the same questions and the same formats Pacific's customers saw in 1995, and the same questions ORA used for Verizon's survey, which produced positive results for that company.
104. ORA's survey provides very strong evidence of a decline in Pacific's customer satisfaction between 1995 and 2001 in key areas.
105. The results for Pacific on ORA's customer survey corroborate some of the more objective findings - that is, findings not based on customers' own reports - contained in Pacific's required reporting.
106. While Pacific's J.D. Power survey for 1996-2001 showed that Pacific ranked in the top six out of sixteen local telephone service providers surveyed, the survey included several factors that we consider peripheral to a true assessment of service quality.
107. When one examines the data reflected in the IDC survey Pacific submitted, it appears Pacific's performance is not as positive in the area of service quality as it claims. The only two indicia of service quality contained in the survey are "customer service" and "voice or service quality." For "customer service," 73.8% of respondents ranked Pacific as a 4 or 5 (with 1 = not very satisfied, and 5 = very satisfied). Of the non-SBC companies, GTE/Verizon's comparable result was 83.1%, Bell Atlantic's was 80.7%, and Bell South's was 72.6%, and US West's was 63.1%. Thus, of the companies SBC does not own, Pacific was worse than Verizon and Bell Atlantic, comparable to Bell South, and better than US West.
108. In the IDC survey, on "voice or service quality," 85.7% of customers ranked Pacific a 4 or 5. Of the non-SBC companies, Bell South scored 86.3, GTE scored 85.9, US West scored 83.8, and Bell Atlantic scored 83.5. Thus, Pacific's results were comparable to the other non-SBC carriers' results. Only SBC's Ameritech, with 62.5%, scored notably lower that the other carriers, who were all in the range of 83.5% to 86.3 percent.
109. The IDC survey does not bolster Pacific's claim that it scores higher on service quality than other carriers.
110. A survey that only looks at carrier's performance at a snapshot in time less useful than ORA's survey, which compares customer perceptions over the course of 6 years.
111. Pacific did not file with the Commission certain customer surveys it contracted with a third-party research firm to conduct as part of its Customer Service Quality (CSQ) process.
112. Customer perceptions gained through surveys can provide a valuable indicator of service quality.
113. Technological improvement can enhance service quality.
114. With its introduction of "Project Pronto," a project that involved broad deployment of advanced services technology, Pacific promised improvements in service quality from the new service, telling investors in 1999 that the new technology would 1) "be less vulnerable to weather conditions, thereby reducing trouble reports," 2) have "reduced activity . . . in the remaining copper plant because of improved reliability," 3) "avoid dispatches on many installations [and thereby] realize efficiencies in [SBC's] installation and maintenance operations," and 4) "substantially reduce the need to rearrange outside plant facilities when installing new or additional services."
115. Pacific's deployment of DSL services may fail to benefit all customers equally.
116. The SBC/Ameritech merger conditions addressing DSL availability in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas contained at least three limitations. First, the merger condition only required deployment in certain wire centers, and not to all customers served by those wire centers. Thus, for example, customers far from a wire center received no guarantee of DSL service. Second, the requirements only extended to low-income rural areas if other rural customers took DSL. Third, the merger conditions were only applicable for a limited time.
117. Growth in the number of lines and customers served, such as characterized most of the 1990s, provides a commensurate opportunity to increase revenues and earnings.
118. During 1989-1995, Pacific cut staff in customer-facing areas. The number of splicing technicians decreased by 26%, the number of systems technicians decreased by 35%, and the average years of experience of Pacific's service technicians declined over that time period.
119. Outside field contractors caused 14% of the Pacific cable cuts causing 911 outages in 2001.
120. Pacific increased the number of service representatives by 61% from 1996 to 1998.
121. The net growth in total Pacific jobs from 1997-2001 was approximately 5.6%.
122. Pacific's numbers vary depending upon how one examines them.
123. While Pacific's staff decreased during the early years of NRF, Pacific made up for those losses in the second half of the 1990s, at least in the area of the customer-facing employees who have the most direct impact on service quality.
124. Pacific's trouble tickets increased as rain declined in certain years.
125. The 1997-98 season had greater rainfall in San Francisco than did the 1994-95 season. Pacific's increase in trouble reports during that period is disproportionate to the increase in rainfall. During the 1997-98 season, factors other than the weather contributed to a deterioration in Pacific's trouble report performance.
126. The carriers have extensive outside plant and can expect rain-related damage.
127. El Niño was not a phenomenon that took anyone by surprise, but rather was long anticipated before it happened.
128. El Niño conditions recur on a regular basis.
129. Pacific has demonstrated at least twice since the Commission instituted NRF that it engages in marketing abuses.
130. There is insufficient evidence to find that Pacific's decisions to restrict the availability of free telephone directories and to charge more for directory assistance calls resulted from the Commission's adoption of the NRF mechanism.
131. Verizon shows problems with its service quality and related matters in the following areas, as more fully explained in subsequent findings of fact:
· Residential and business installation intervals and business installation commitments met.
· Business trouble reports for repairs.
· Staffing levels.
132. Verizon's service quality results were better than Pacific's during the NRF period, but also showed problems in some areas.
133. With regard to installation intervals, the ARMIS 1994-2001 data show that Verizon performed less well than did Pacific for both residence and business installations from 1995-99.
134. In 2000-01, Verizon California's performance on ARMIS improved: average installation intervals for residence customers decreased from nearly 5 days in 1998 to under 1 days in 2000 and 2001, while the same interval for business customers went from nearly 7 days in 1998 to just over two days in 2000 and 2001. Nonetheless, Verizon's installation intervals (business) were at 4 days or more from 1995 through 1999.
135. Verizon's installation intervals (residence), as shown in ARMIS data, increased from about 1.5 days to over 4.5 days between 1994 and 1998.
136. Pacific's ARMIS installation intervals were generally better than Verizon's during the NRF period, with business installation intervals remaining stable in the 3-4 day range during the entire period 1994-2001. Residence intervals were not as steady, with small spikes in 1995 and 1997, but the overall numbers were generally lower than Verizon's except in 1994-95 and 2000-01.
137. ARMIS data on installation "commitments met" show that other than in 1999, when Verizon's percentage of residential commitments met dipped to below 97%, Verizon performed well during the 1993-2001 period on its residential commitments.
138. In the area of business commitments met, Verizon's results showed a general declining trend between 1991 and 1998 and were most problematic in 1995 and 1998, dipping to 96% and 95.5% of commitments met for business customers in those years. For all years except 1999, the data show that Verizon's performance was worse than Pacific's.
139. Overall, the data show that Verizon's installation intervals were problematic, and that its "commitments met" performance also showed problems with respect to business (but not residential) customers.
140. Verizon had performance problems in its installation intervals and installation "commitments met" performance for business customers over the relevant period.
141. GTE continued to conceal the true facts regarding 1989-92 operation of its Language Assistance Center, addressed in D.98-12-084, until 1997.
142. Verizon's DSL service quality information is not contained within the regulated utility.
143. ORA did not establish that Verizon misreports its installation service results or that Verizon's installation data are inaccurate. The concerns ORA raises are the result of a mismatch between its data and the data on which Verizon bases its results, miscommunication between the parties, and other reasons for which neither party is blameworthy.
144. ORA's discovery of "duplicate" records does not establish that there are errors in Verizon's data.
145. ORA's discovery of mismatched installation intervals in different sets of Verizon data does not establish that there are errors in Verizon's data used to report its installation record.
146. The evidence is inconclusive on whether the FCC means the term "working days," for purposes of a carrier's calculation of its installation intervals, to include weekend days on which the carrier actually does business.
147. The fact that Verizon's installation data do not match the information in certain informal complaints on file with the Commission does not establish problems with Verizon's reporting.
148. ORA did not establish that there is a problem with Verizon's "commitments met" data.
149. The New York Public Service Commission found that a claim that a Verizon affiliate falsified service quality data in New York was unfounded.
150. The evidence did not establish that Verizon prematurely closes installation orders or trouble tickets.
151. Verizon met a minimum of 98% of its basic installation order commitments over the past nine years, which is above the GO 133-B standard of 95 percent.
152. In nine of ten years since 1991, Verizon met its installation commitments for residential customers no less than 99% of the time, as reported in its ARMIS results; since 1991, Verizon has met its business installation commitments an average of 97% of the time.
153. Verizon's long switch downtime incidents have decreased since 1991.
154. It is untrue that service quality never improves without regulatory action.
155. Verizon's repair performance showed some problems during the NRF period, especially in the area of trouble reports.
156. In the area of repair intervals, Verizon's performance was consistently good through much of the NRF period, but has worsened in 2000-01, especially for residential customers.
157. Verizon's repair interval data throughout the NRF period was consistently better than Pacific's.
158. On Verizon's ARMIS results for trouble reports, Verizon's problems appeared primarily in the context of its business customers. For business customers, Verizon's results were worse than Pacific's for both initial trouble reports for conditions other than out of service conditions and repeat trouble reports for other than out of service conditions.
159. Verizon's repair intervals for both residential and business customers have exhibited problems in the recent past, and there is no assurance that more recent positive trends will continue over time.
160. Verizon's residential repair intervals increased in 2000 and 2001, but have improved somewhat in the first quarter of 2002. It is not clear whether this improvement represents a short- or long-term phenomenon.
161. In 2000, Verizon reported residential repeat out-of-service repairs within 24 hours of a previous repeat out-of-service repair 1.88 percent of the time. Verizon gave the figure as a lower number: 392 out of approximately 600,000 repairs in 2000. While the number is small, it gives us concern because of the magnitude of the problems these customers experience. These are customers whose phones are completely out of service, and who have already had one repair visit. They then have two more repair visits before Verizon can resolve the problem.
162. Verizon's business annual average repair intervals were not stable in 2001 and 2002, varying between 10 and 15 hours during this time frame. This was an increase from the levels Verizon achieved in prior years. The worst performance occurred in the first quarter of 2001.
163. Verizon's residential initial trouble reports declined by only 3% from 1995 to 2001, as compared to the 18% decline Verizon claims by comparing 1995 to its annualized 2002 data.
164. Verizon's BOAT results were superior to Pacific's in 1995, 1996 and 1998-2001. However, on average, Verizon's BOAT results failed to meet the minimum standard of 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds during the period from 1993 through 1997. Verizon's BOAT performance was substandard during the early part of the NRF period, but has shown steady improvement since 1997.
165. Verizon's TRSAT results were generally better than Pacific's from 1994-2001 (except in 1995 when the two carriers' results were about equal). Verizon's TRSAT results failed to meet the minimum standard of 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds from 1991 through 1993 (with extremely poor performance in 1992) and in 1995.
166. Verizon's SPG program is a good way to offer recompense to customers immediately after they suffer service problems. However, in order for such a program to work fairly, Verizon should ensure it properly discloses the SPG to all customers.
167. The evidence did not establish that Verizon consistently discloses its SPG to all customers.
168. A customer must request Verizon's SPG in order to get it.
169. A properly disclosed and applied SPG program is a good tool for compensating customers as soon as they suffer harm, and for motivating carriers to improve service quality.
170. Verizon's formal complaint history during the NRF period compares favorably to Pacific's record. Both formal complaints against Verizon relate to conduct early in the 1990s and before. While GTEC did not bring to light the true facts surrounding the marketing abuses in the second case until 1997, the Commission did not find that the abuses themselves continued after 1992.
171. Verizon's informal complaint history compares favorably to Pacific's.
172. ORA's customer service survey for Verizon showed that in the minds of the customers surveyed, Verizon's service quality has improved since 1991.
173. The fact that ORA's customer service survey is capable of measuring an improvement in service quality for Verizon is a validation of the survey's usefulness for drawing a similar - but far less favorable - comparison between Pacific's past and present performance.
174. Even if customers perceive service quality to be good, there may nonetheless be objective service quality problems that require a remedy. In reaching conclusions about the carriers' service quality, we look not only at customers' subjective perceptions but also at the objective reporting.
175. Where Verizon demonstrates objective problems - for example in the area of repair data - we expect Verizon to make improvement.
176. Verizon surveys its California customers by conducting over 1,000 interviews per month covering Directory Assistance, Consumer and Business Provisioning (which covers installation of new service), Consumer and Business Repair (which covers diagnosis, repair, and restoration of existing service), and Consumer and Business Request and Inquiry (which covers requests and inquires directed to the Business Office regarding customer bills, products and services, prices, and company policies). The results of these surveys show that Verizon offers good service quality. Neither ORA nor TURN challenged the results of these surveys.
177. Not all customers are benefiting from Pacific's and Verizon's technological upgrades.
178. While Verizon may have used its increased flexibility under NRF to improve its service quality, Pacific's less positive results under NRF undermine any general argument that NRF alone, and not other factors, causes companies to improve service quality.
179. Verizon's field staffing declined by 35% from 1989, the year the Commission implemented NRF, to 2000, with a large reduction (42%) occurring from 1989-1994. The total reduction in cable splicers or their equivalents was 17%.
180. Verizon's service quality suffered during the first quarter of 2001 due to unusually heavy rains.
1. As presently constituted, NRF fails to ensure high quality service for residence and business customers of either Pacific or Verizon. NRF's impact on service quality was a key concern when we adopted the new framework in 1989, and we find we had reason for concern.
2. D.89-10-031, the decision establishing the NRF framework, did not institute specific service quality reporting requirements. Rather, the Commission acknowledged the need under NRF to be vigilant about service quality lest incentives to cut costs caused the carriers to cut too deeply.
3. Any changes that we make to NRF should be coordinated with revisions to General Order 133-B that result from the rulemaking we recently opened to make such revisions, Rulemaking 02-12-004.
4. GO 133-B requires carriers to count an order as held when the service is not provided within 30 days after the commitment date. Pacific's method of counting such orders only once a month undercounts held orders.
5. Judge Thomas correctly ruled that Pacific should continue to report certain data to this Commission for measures required under the FCC's MCOT requirements that expired in November 2002. It is reasonable to require Pacific to continue reporting these results until further notice of the Commission.
6. It is reasonable to extend the end date of Verizon's agreement to continue reporting MCOT data to this Commission. While Verizon agreed to continue the reporting until the conclusion of this proceeding, it is reasonable to order Verizon to continue such reporting until further notice of the Commission.
7. It is appropriate to consider the results of formal complaints and other formal Commission proceedings initiated during the NRF period to come to conclusions about Pacific's and Verizon's service quality. The OIR for this proceeding states that, "requests for relief that are better addressed in complaint proceedings or enforcement OIIs" are beyond the scope of this proceeding, and we do not consider such requests for relief here. However, the scope of this proceeding does not limit the Commission from reviewing the frequency and nature of prior Commission actions addressing carriers' performance and service quality failures during the NRF period as one of many measures used to assess how service quality has fared under NRF.
8. In D.01-12-021, we found that "aggregating data in the manner Pacific proposes has the effect of masking poor service quality in one area."
9. It is not adequate for a carrier to show good performance only in some instances. If there are instances of poor service quality, we should require improvement in these areas. Positive results do not cancel out the negative results or mean that customers suffering in the areas where performance is poor experience positive service quality.
10. It is appropriate to consider in this proceeding whether NRF creates economic incentives for poor service quality, whether movement of functions formerly provided by the regulated utilities to unregulated affiliates harms service quality, and whether competition affects service quality.
11. In the context of a settlement of our investigation of complaints about Pacific's DSL service in I.02-01-024, we found that Pacific had failed to maintain adequate records of complaints filed against its ASI affiliate, which provides DSL service to customers.
12. In its Service Quality OIR, the Commission intends to consider whether to amend GO 133-B to require that when carriers report their answer times, they include the time customers spend in ARUs.
13. In D.02-09-050, our decision allowing Pacific into the long distance market, we found that, "Local telephone competition in California exists in the technical and quantitative data; but it has yet to find its way into the residences of the majority of California's ratepayers."
14. Pacific should have been far more helpful to ORA's witness in pointing out problems with Pacific's data up front. Pacific should have explained in detail how it translates the raw data to the reports it makes to regulators. Pacific failed to cooperate with ORA in helping it to understand Pacific's data.
15. Because this Commission relies on FCC ARMIS data to determine carriers' service quality, we have an interest in ensuring the data's accuracy.
16. The Commission intends to consider clarifying the meaning of the term "primary (main) telephone service" in GO 133-B in its Service Quality OIR, R.02-12-004. GO 133-B's reference to "primary (main) telephone service" is unclear and requires clarification. It is unclear whether the quoted phrase refers to a class of service that includes basic exchange service and that the sequence of lines to an address is not a factor in the definition of primary service; or whether "primary (main) telephone service" refers only to the first line into a home. We question whether it makes sense to interpret GO 133-B to apply only to first lines into a home.
17. In C.91-03-006/D.93-05-062 regarding late payment charges, Pacific was found to have imposed erroneous late payment charges because it did not timely process payments as they came into its payment processing center. The Commission found that Pacific considered cost in determining whether to fix the problem: "[a] letter to the Comptroller in May 1990 . . . quoted a manager who believed that curing the problem may not be `worth spending a lot of money to obtain.'" The Commission required Pacific to refund $34 million in unlawful late charges, and to pay a $15 million fine.
18. In A.95-12-043/D.97-03-021 regarding ISDN, the Commission found Pacific had insufficient staffing, and poor installation and customer service records, and noted that incentives to cut costs prevented Pacific from addressing the problem. It also found that, "Pacific does not provide high quality customer services to its ISDN customers and potential ISDN customers . . . ."
19. In D.01-12-021, the Commission found that Pacific's "average initial repair interval for residential customers increased 45 percent between 1996 and 2000" (with its residential repeat trouble reports per 100 lines peaking in 1998) and that in "every year since 1996, Pacific's mean time to restore service to residential customers [was] higher than the 1996 base year." The also Commission found "a sharp decline in service quality of nearly 50% over a mere four years coupled with Pacific's knowledge thereof and its lack of an attempt to remedy the deterioration." The Commission concluded that, "The Commission cannot find that SBC Pacific's service quality is excellent when the initial out-of-service repair intervals for residential customers has (sic) increased 45% since 1996." The Commission instituted a system of automatic penalties if Pacific's repair times failed to meet standards established by that decision. Given the timing of ORA's complaint and the Commission's imposition of penalties, it is fair to infer that regulatory intervention had something to do with Pacific's improved performance thereafter.
20. Our continued vigilance and enforcement are needed to ensure good service quality.
21. In C.98-04-004/D.01-09-058 regarding Pacific marketing abuse, the Commission found that Pacific provided poor service quality and failed adequately to disclose information regarding its Caller ID, Wire Pro, and "The Basics" packaged services. We found that "Pacific Bell has exhibited a pattern of regulatory compliance during periods of special oversight, only to be followed by noncompliance in furtherance of Pacific Bell's revenue goals when the special oversight ends." The Commission found that "customer service quality is compromised when Pacific Bell representatives ask each caller, at the beginning of every call, for permission to access the subscriber's proprietary network information and to repeat the question if the answer is `no,' and force customers to listen to unwanted sales pitches prior to providing a response to a customer service inquiry. Therefore such practices are inconsistent with reasonable service quality."
22. Because GO 133-B specifically excludes billing inquiries from its measure of BOAT, we do not find that Pacific's performance of 68% or fewer calls answered within 20 seconds is a violation of GO 133-B standards, when billing calls are included in that measure.
23. Pacific did not violate Pub. Util. Code § 451 in connection with its answer times for billing calls.
24. The Commission intends to consider whether to include billing calls within the GO 133-B standards in its Service Quality Order Instituting Rulemaking.
25. In A.92-05-002/D.94-06-011, the Commission approved settlement with ORA's predecessor, DRA, regarding Pacific's TRSAT answer times.
26. In D.97-03-067, the Commission found that, "ORA presented an impressive analysis of issues relating to Pacific's service quality which may be useful in other contexts." The Commission also found that "Pacific is and has been out of compliance with GO 133-B, apparently for some time. . . . Pacific failed to meet [the] standard for trouble report answering time almost 50% of the time for the period 1993 through the first six months of 1996 . . . ." The Commission also stated: "We are concerned by Pacific's failure to meet trouble report service answering time standards following our adoption of a settlement in D.94-06-011 under which Pacific, as a settling party, agreed to improve its trouble report service answering time in order to avoid the imposition of a penalty mechanism. In D.94-06-011, we found that `. . . Pacific will also be adjusting its procedures to improve its quality of service . . . .' (see page 118, D.94-06-011). Since that time, in fact, Pacific's service quality has declined." The Commission threatened Pacific with penalties if it did not improve its results in 90 days, and only then did Pacific's TRSAT and BOAT results improve.
27. In C.99-06-053/D.01-10-071, Pacific was shown to have marketed its "Saver 60" intraLATA toll calling plan to customers for whom the plan did not produce savings, despite Pacific's claims that it would. Pacific settled the case by agreeing to provide customers notification of the error, make refunds and establish a two-way feedback/complaint mechanism for telemarketing services.
28. In C.99-16-018/D.01-12-021 regarding repair services, the Commission found Pacific's repair intervals had increased to such a level that they violated both Pub. Util. Code § 451 and a Commission-ordered merger condition requiring that service quality be maintained. The Commission also found that Pacific did not inform customers of their right to be given a window of time within which a representative would complete required service. The Commission found that past performance is an adequate standard for determining service quality degradation in violation of Section 451, that cost cutting measures can cause such degradation, and that aggregation of data from multiple measures can mask service quality so poor in a single measure as to violate § 451.
29. C.02-01-007/D.02-10-073, regarding DSL, was settled with the Commission adopting Pacific's proposed $27 million penalty payment into the State general fund. Pacific agreed in the settlement that "During the period of January 2000 through the [date of the settlement agreement], an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 [of Pacific's DSL affiliate's] customers complained about and/or experienced billing errors" and that these errors "were not resolved in a timely manner and/or required multiple calls and substantial investment of time to resolve."
30. It is appropriate pursuant to Commission Rule 73 for the Commission we take official notice of the Commission's actions in the complaints or other formal proceedings discussed in the section entitled "Complaint Data - Pacific" and "Complaint Data - Verizon" in the body of this decision.
31. In commencing this proceeding, the Commission stated in R.01-09-001 that, "in developing the [customer] survey, the party should use as a starting point the surveys of Pacific and Verizon customers conducted by Commission staff in previous proceedings."
32. Pacific was required to file with the Commission certain customer surveys it contracted with a third-party research firm to conduct as part of its Customer Service Quality process.
33. Under D.91-07-056, Pacific is required to file with the Commission service quality reports P.A. 02-03 and P.A. 02-04, both of which are initiated by Pacific.
34. Due to Pacific's failure to file information required by the Commission under its NRF monitoring program and Pacific's refusal to produce this information as requested by Overland, Pacific has deprived the Commission of information that may be useful in its assessment of Pacific's service quality under NRF. We can only conclude that the results of those surveys are not favorable to Pacific. At the very least, we cannot find that Pacific's service quality results are enhanced by the P.A. 02-03 surveys, since Pacific has never submitted them.
35. Changes in the California economy that increase or decrease demand, technological change that stimulates demand for more telephone lines, and unbundling and interconnection requirements imposed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 do not provide an excuse for poor service quality.
36. Steady service quality during times of economic expansion and contraction are not something for which we should reward a company. Our standards and those imposed by the FCC apply regardless of such external factors.
37. Rainfall is not an excuse for poor service. Local exchange telephone carriers can and should have staff available to mitigate service quality problems during periods of extreme weather conditions. They should plan seasonal adjustments or contingencies to accommodate inclement weather.
38. The Commission's authority over service quality encompasses more than network technical performance. It is appropriate to consider trends and patterns in customer-affecting practices such as cramming, slamming and other marketing abuses during our assessment of service quality under NRF.
39. In D.86-05-072, the Commission required Pacific to refund over $62 million to customers and to contribute $16.5 million to the Ratepayer Education Trust Fund.
40. The complainant in C.86-07-013 alleged that Pacific falsely advertised its Touch Tone service. The complaint was dismissed as moot, because Pacific had refunded the complainant's charges and changed its advertising, but the Commission later ordered Pacific to extend its refund with interest to other customers. .
41. In Resolution T-15404 and D.98-12-084, GTE, Verizon's predecessor, agreed to pay $13 million to settle a case alleging that sales staff at its foreign Language Assistance Center charged non-English speaking subscribers for optional services, such as Call Waiting or Call Forwarding, which the customer did not order during the 1989-92 period.
42. NRF does not cause carriers to establish self-imposed service quality measures.
43. The decision establishing the NRF framework did not institute particular service quality reporting requirements. Rather, the Commission acknowledged the need under NRF to be vigilant about service quality lest incentives to cut costs caused the carriers to cut too deeply.
44. Whether housed separately or only reported separately, advanced services results are key to our understanding of Verizon's service quality.
45. It is important to retain - and even expand where necessary - the reporting requirements we currently impose as part of GO 133-B or elsewhere.
46. Improvement in Verizon's TRSAT results is not reasonably related to the Commission's action against Pacific after the Commission's Pacific Telesis-SBC merger order (D.97-03-067) threatened Pacific with sanctions for noncompliance with the TRSAT standard.
47. Verizon's inclusion of billing calls in its BOAT results does not violate GO 133-B, but in order for Verizon's year-over-year results to be comparable, it is appropriate to require Verizon to seek Commission permission to change the way it reports its data.
48. In D.94-06-011, the Commission approved a settlement in which GTEC agreed to implement a service guarantee program. Under the program, if Verizon failed to meet the G.O. 133-B answer time standards for any three months of a six-month moving period, Verizon would be obligated to provide a refund to ratepayers. Verizon's BOAT performance thereafter showed improvement.
49. In order for Verizon's SPG to be distributed fairly, Verizon must consistently disclose the credit to its customers. If Verizon does not do so, it would be appropriate for the Commission to require Verizon to do so.
50. In A.92-05-002/D.94-06-011, regarding GTEC (Verizon's predecessor) answer times and switch outages, the Commission found that GTEC's answer times failed to meet minimum GO 133-B standards. GTEC failed to meet the G.O. 133-B answer time standard for its Customer Care Centers in 17 out of the 24 months in 1991 and 1992. For the Customer Billing Centers, the average speed of answer time was approximately two minutes: 126.1 seconds and 113.1 seconds, respectively. GTEC also had a high customer billing error rate, a disproportionately high number of informal complaints, inconsistencies in its service quality monitoring data and problems with its calling cards.
51. Verizon's formal complaint history, standing alone, does not indicate a significant service quality problem.
52. Verizon does not show significant service quality problems based on the informal complaint data in the record.
53. It is the duty of the carriers to manage their growth so as to maintain high service quality.
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. Pacific Bell (Pacific) shall conform its method of counting orders held over 30 days to the requirements of General Order (GO) 133-B as stated in this decision. Within 30 days of the effective date of this decision, Pacific shall file a compliance document in this docket demonstrating its compliance with the requirements of this decision with regard to the calculation of such held orders.
2. Pursuant to Pub. Util. Code § 310, we ratify the ruling of the assigned Administrative Law Judge requiring Pacific to continue reporting MCOT data to this Commission. Pacific shall continue to report data to this Commission for measures required under the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) Merger Compliance Oversight Team (MCOT) requirements that expired in November 2002 until further notice of the Commission.
3. Verizon California, Inc. (Verizon) shall continue to report data to this Commission for measures required under the FCC's MCOT requirements contained in its order FCC 00-221 until further notice of the Commission.
4. We deny the Office of Ratepayer Advocates' (ORA's) recommendation that we conduct an audit of Pacific's or Verizon's historic installation data to determine the extent of data error and its subsequent impact on reported service quality results during the New Regulatory Framework (NRF) period. Our rejection of ORA's recommendation does not in any way preclude the Commission staff from reviewing in the future Pacific's service quality data or its data collection and reporting methods. Similarly, in denying this recommendation, we do not intend to preclude proposals in Phase 3B designed to ensure the accuracy of data reported to regulators, through audits or any other means.
5. Pacific shall file and serve data in the form of a compliance filing in this docket that answers the following questions under oath within 30 days of the effective date of this decision.
· Has Pacific at any time during the period 1990-2002 closed installation orders containing multiple lines to be installed on the same order after a portion of - but not all - the lines were installed?
· If the answer to the previous question is yes, produce an annual summary of the number of such orders.
· If Pacific reports that any multi-line order was closed before all lines associated with that order were installed, explain in detail how Pacific accounts for such orders when calculating its installation intervals for purposes of any regulatory reporting requirements.
6. We deny The Utility Reform Network's (TURN's) request for a finding that Pacific has violated Pub. Util. Code § 451 with regard to its billing calls.
7. Pursuant to Commission Rule 73, we take official notice of the Commission's actions in the complaints or other formal proceedings discussed in the sections entitled "Complaint Data - Pacific" and "Complaint Data - Verizon" in the body of this decision.
8. The Commission will consider in Phase 3B of this proceeding what regulatory actions it should take to address the service quality problems identified in this decision. The parties shall address such issues in their Phase 3B testimony.
9. Verizon shall notify us in advance if it seeks to discontinue reporting billing inquiries in its Business Office Answer Time (BOAT) results to make any other change in the types of calls it includes in its BOAT reporting.
10. Neither Pacific nor Verizon shall change the way they count their GO 133-B results (except as ordered herein) without advance permission of this Commission.
11. Verizon shall address the following issues in its Phase 3B testimony:
· State whether every customer receives information on a business office or repair service call to Verizon (a call requesting installation, repair or other Verizon service) about the availability of its Service Performance Guarantee (SPG). Provide written evidence - scripts, internal memoranda, training materials or other documents - that service personnel at Verizon give such information to customers on the calls. If the written evidence establishes that service personnel do not disclose the SPG to customers on all service calls, produce that written evidence.
· If service personnel do not give every business or repair service caller information during a call to Verizon about the availability of the SPG, explain how customers obtain information about the SPG.
12. Verizon shall not discontinue its SPG program as a result of this decision.
13. The parties shall address any needed regulatory changes related to the findings this decision makes in Phase 3B of this proceeding.
This order is effective today.
Dated______________, at San Francisco, California.
APPENDIX A
************ APPEARANCES ************ |
Mark P. Schreiber |
Cynthia Wales |
Thomas E. Morgan |
Elaine Duncan |
Bill Chang |
Alan Lofaso |
James Simmons |
Sue Wong |
Douglas Garrett |
Henry Weissmann |
George Sanchez, Jr. |
David M. Wilson |
