Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CPUC Commissioner Supports Wireless Bill of Rights

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 00:43:46 -0500

CPUC Commissioner Supports Wireless Bill of Rights

California State Public Utilities Commissioner Susan Kennedy is
seeking an exemption for wireless service providers from California’s
proposed Telecom Bill of Rights. The CPUC’s proposed rules call for
stronger consumer protections concerning telecom services

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Article Last Updated: Saturday, November 01,
2003 - 8:22:48 AM PST

PUC officials differ over
wireless code
Commissioners disagree over need to
strengthen consumer protections
By Eve Mitchell, BUSINESS WRITER
State Public Utilities Commissioner Susan
Kennedy plans to seek an exemption for
wireless carriers from some of the new
consumer protection rules the agency is
developing for telecommunications
carriers.

The proposal -- which Kennedy is
expected to unveil in late November -- is at
odds with a competing plan released in
July by Commissioner Carl Wood. Wood's
plan calls for strengthening

existing consumer protections that apply to
wireline carriers while extending the rules
to wireless carriers.

The rules cover disclosure and marketing
practices, billing procedures and dispute
processes, among other things.

The wireless industry is fighting Wood's
proposal. In September, the nation's major
carriers adopted a voluntary code of
consumer protection just days before the
first vote was scheduled on Wood's
proposal.

The vote has since
been delayed
several times as
Wood has worked to
address concerns of
other
commissioners and
the wireless
industry. Kennedy
doesn't believe a
compromise was in
the works so she
has decided to write
her own proposal,
said Ross
LaJeunesse, her
chief of staff.

"We feel there is competition in the market
already. If there is a good market and
consumers have protections through
market mechanisms, what are we doing
jumping in?" he said.

"All along, one of the key elements to my
approach to this is consumers ought to
have a common set of expectations," said
Wood, adding he's "not out to get the
cellular industry."

Wood pushed for the new rules -- dubbed
the "Telecom Bill of Rights" -- in response
to an increase in consumer complaints
regarding both wireline and wireless
telecom services in recent years.

Wireless complaint statistics have
"dropped like a rock," in the last couple
years, said LaJeunesse. However, unlike
last year, those statistics were not
included in the PUC's most recent report
on telecom competition. LaJeunesse says
he was told there was a problem with the
data used but wonders if political
motivation is at work.

AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Nextel
Communications, Sprint PCS and Verizon
Wireless collectively had 16.5 million
customers in California as of March 31,
according to the report. During the first
three months of the year, the five carriers
took in a combined $2.52 billion in
California revenues, the report said.

A consumer group is not concerned or
surprised by Kennedy's competing
proposal.

"We had not considered Kennedy's
support of the Bill of Rights essential, nor
did we expect it," Michael Shames,
executive director of the San Diego-based
Utility Consumer Action Network, wrote in
an e-mail.

http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11271~1738453,00.html

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