WASHINGTON-State regulators should be stopped from implementing restrictive billing requirements, Nextel Communications Inc. told the Federal Communications Commission in comments on a consumer advocate petition on truth in billing.
“Confirming the FCC’s jurisdiction over wireless services is critical as a number of states are taking actions that inevitably affect wireless carrier rate structures,” said Nextel. “The commission has ample authority to preclude invasive state activity in light of the Communications Act’s express pre-emption of state regulation of commercial mobile radio service rates and rate structure. The FCC’s pre-emptive authority extends to state regulations that interfere or conflict with the uniform federal regulatory scheme established by Congress.”
Nextel said its service is delivered through a nationwide network and it only has a “single uniform billing system and customer operations staff that provides consistent, uniform customer service and support throughout the United States.”
If states are allowed to define how bills should look, it would defeat the benefits of nationwide wireless service, said Nextel.
“Wireless carriers face a mounting toll of inconsistent state requirements that range from the very prescriptive to the very flexible. The FCC, as a matter of law and policy, has historically relied upon market forces to regulate wireless carrier behavior in the highly competitive wireless market. State regulation in this area is not filling a void. Rather, it is replacing the commission’s judgement with the judgement of 50 state regulatory bodies and 50 state legislatures, whose interests are not in maintaining a uniform, national deregulatory framework for wireless operations,” said Nextel.
State regulators, who met last week in Salt Lake City, disagree. In a resolution passed at its meeting, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners told the FCC that if it changes its truth-in-billing rules at the request of consumer advocates and against the wishes of the wireless industry, it should not pre-empt states from having tougher billing rules.
NARUC met as the telecom industry and consumer advocates were preparing comments to a petition filed in March by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates that called on the FCC to investigate wireless billing practices and to eliminate the use of regulatory surcharges on customer bills.
The wireless industry does not support the NASUCA petition. The wireless industry ran into the wrath of NASUCA when it began charging for wireless local number portability even before the service was available.
NARUC upped the ante by saying last summer, it had “numerous concerns regarding the current practice of some wireless carriers imposing separate explicit charges for federally mandated programs such as enhanced 911 service, local number portability, number pooling and universal-service programs funding.”
