Telcos to Face Daily Fines for Bad Service in California
Phone companies will face automatic daily fines of up to $25,000 in California for failure to meet service quality measures, ruled the Public Utilities Commission at its Thursday meeting. The CPUC passed the order in a 3-2 vote, with the…
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two dissenting commissioners supporting an alternate proposed decision. Under the approved decision, phone companies will face the fines if they fail to meet the commission’s metrics for (1) out-of-service repair interval, (2) customer trouble reports and (3) answer time for trouble reports and billing and non-billing inquiries. The order requires telcos to submit federally mandated outage reports to the Communications Division. Companies can suspend accrued fees if they make investments in service quality in an amount equal to twice the fine, it said. The alternate proposed decision similarly imposed $25,000 daily automatic fines, but the fines wouldn't start to accrue until a company failed to meet the standards for three consecutive months. “Our decision today provides additional protection for those who have traditional landline telephone service, and it also calls for continued monitoring of the Federal Communications Commission’s proceeding on rural outages, and allows for workshops on how to deal with 911 service and other safety related issues,” said CPUC President Michael Picker. “There are many other actions underway that will continue our efforts to look at telecommunication issues, including a competition study, and a network exam. Clearly we’re not at the end of the discussion." Commissioner Catherine Sandoval, who wrote the alternate proposal, said the decision "advances the CPUC’s work to protect communities and compliance with California law.” At the meeting, however, Sandoval said she would soon release a dissenting statement.