Industry Resists Calls for Billing Mandates

Calling the current rule inadequate, Free Press, Consumers Union, Media Access Project, Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America and New America Foundation asked the commission to impose clear rules on pricing formats, to make them consistent across the industry. The FCC should bring back rules to prevent the advertising and billing of “base rates” that exclude mandatory miscellaneous charges, they said. The regulator should require “prominent and concrete” disclosure of usage limits and overage charges in billing and advertising, the groups said.

Calling voluntary industry codes the most effective way to ensure consumer protection, the CTIA said expansion of the federal role would disrupt “equilibrium,” innovation and competition. Consumer education and outreach by the FCC are also important ways to ensure that consumers are aware information already available to them and take advantage of it, USTelecom said.

Consumers generally aren’t confused about the labeling of fees and government-mandated charges on their bills, CTIA said. But 911 fees are an exception, because some state and local government bodies requiring carriers to collect fees ostensibly for the support of E-911 are routinely diverting the fees to unrelated purposes, it said.

A one-size-fits-all model of consumer disclosure would discourage competition and reduce choices for consumers, CTIA said, pointing to “substantial differences” between wired and wireless broadband. Bundled services won’t fit squarely into a static comparison chart, the group said. It’s particularly unnecessary to subject pay-in-advance, fixed-price and unlimited usage carriers to additional regulations, said MetroPCS. The FCC notice of inquiry asked whether information disclosure requirements that govern other industries would be appropriate for communications industry.

Trade groups underlined the potential cost of compliance for companies such as small and rural providers. The Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies said the cost of mandatory modifications to their end-user bills would be “disproportionately higher” for them per customer than for most other service providers. The Wireless Communications Association asked the commission to create a broad based advisory committee to study consumers’ information needs and ways to avoid consumer confusion without oversimplication, and to seek routes to additional review and comment. The FCC has acknowledged the “importance of identifying disclosure policies that have a high ratio of consumer benefit to industry cost,” the association noted.

The Rural Cellular Association urged the FCC to eliminate specific prohibitions in its current truth-in- billing rules aiming at practices like “cramming” and instead to rely on existing “statutory requirements.” It also supported keeping the two wireless-carrier exemptions to the rules, saying the requirements aren’t relevant to wireless carriers’ services. An exemption requiring that a separate listing of charges of two or more carriers appear on a wireless bill should remain in effect because carriers aren’t subject to equal-access requirements and so will seldom need to list a new long distance service provider on their bills. An exemption to a requirement that bills specify which charges will result in disconnection of basic, local service if unpaid should remain in effect because the rule applies in a wireline context and has no relevance to wireless carriers, the group said.

Most of those filing seemed to agree that the coverage of the rules should expand. Public-interest groups proposed extending wireline and wireless rules to broadband, cable and satellite video providers. But NCTA urged the FCC to refrain from increasing “regulatory burdens” on cable operators. Voice service providers, regardless of technology, should be subject to the same truth-in-billing requirements, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance said. OPASTCO urged extending the existing rules to interconnected VoIP providers, citing VoIP substitution. Any rules should take the form of flexible, broad principles rather than detailed rules governing the format of bills or the information in them, the group said.

Clear disclosure of service quality and limitations and contract terms is necessary, the consumer groups said. That includes disclosure of service speeds for all Internet services. Providers should be required to clarify all “vague and overbroad terms of service” and their practices that may affect service usage, the groups said. The commission should also require disclosure of obstacles to ending or changing service and set up a way for consumers to get satisfaction by complaining, they said.

Congress gave the commission the responsibility to set disclosure rules, the consumer groups said. Speeds, the costs of service and hidden fees are the subjects of common misleading practices, they said. But the CTIA and others warned that the First Amendment allows carriers to communicate freely and truthfully with their subscribers.