WASHINGTON-The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a pro-market think tank, released a study Wednesday that it claims shows that the proposed California Telecommunications Users Bill of Rights will cost consumers and only benefit lawyers.
“Plaintiff and class-action lawyers-not consumers-would be the ultimate beneficiaries of new wireless-phone regulations being pushed by government regulators in California,” said PFF in a statement accompanying the study by Paul Rubin, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics and Law at Emory University and PFF senior fellow.
PFF has been consistently against the proposed bill of rights, and the topic of wireless regulation will be discussed at its annual conference in Aspen, Colo., next week.
The latest iteration of the bill of rights, released last month, is better than previous versions, said Rubin. “The most recent set of proposals are substantially improved over the previous proposals. Nonetheless, the proposals are fundamentally misguided and most should not be adopted,” he said.
The California Telecommunications Users Bill of Rights details consumer rights that all communications service providers must respect, as well as a set of consumer protection rules all carriers must follow to protect those rights. The consumer protection safeguards detailed in the Bill of Rights include issues such as carrier disclosure, marketing practices, service initiation and changes, billing, late-payment penalties, contract changes, privacy and 911 service.
Parties may file comments pointing out factual, legal or technical errors in the draft decision by Aug. 24. Any replies to those comments must be filed by Sept. 4.
The wireless industry asked for more time to comment on the proposals but the California Public Utilities Commission rejected this request.
California PUC Commissioner Carl Wood said last month he is hopeful he will be able to get unanimous agreement for his proposal when it comes up on the PUC agenda on Sept. 18. Wood did indicate that one or more PUC members might ask for the item to be put off or may suggest alternatives.
