WASHINGTON-The California Senate approved legislation creating a bill of rights for telecom consumers, a measure modeled after one-year-old state guidelines that are now in jeopardy as a revamped Public Utilities Commission considers a less-regulatory consumer rule.
“Despite its poor track record, the cellular telephone industry continues to believe that minimum customer service standards are not needed,” said Sen. Martha Escutia (D), the lead sponsor of the legislation and chairwoman of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. “It’s a shame that the industry is keeping its head in the sand and refusing to negotiate on the bill.”
A key Democratic backer of the bill had especially strong words for industry.
“The PUC worked for four years to put together a set of rules to provide telephone customers with a basic set of common-sense protections and rights. As soon as the architects of the rules left office, the giant telephone companies ratcheted up their complaints, and the new industry-friendly PUC threw the rules out the window. Since the PUC clearly isn’t interested in doing its job to protect telephone customers, those of us who think people have a right not to be ripped off decided to step in to try and fill the void,” said Sen. Debra Bowen (D).
Even if the Democratic-controlled state legislature passes the bill of rights, GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to veto the legislation. Schwarzenegger and the mobile-phone industry oppose new consumer protection rules governing wireless and wireline carrier billing, marketing and service contracts.
Even supporters of the Senate bill say it would be difficult to override a veto by Schwarzenegger, despite his drop in popularity.
The California legislation forbids telecom carriers from making deceptive or misleading statements about rates and services, and requires them to provide customers with written confirmation of every order for service as well as written copies of each contract. The measure allows customers to cancel new service within 30 days without termination fees or penalties.
In addition, the bill calls on telecom firms to provide customer contracts and make required disclosures in the language used to advertise the product or service upon a customer’s request. Bills must be clearly organized and contain only charges that have been authorized by the customer, and only government-imposed fees and taxes may be identified as government fees and taxes.
The mobile-phone industry has asked the Federal Communications Commission to declare that state laws and regulations on early termination fees are pre-empted by federal law.
On a parallel front, California PUC Commissioner Susan Kennedy is heading up an effort to get agency approval of a scaled-backed telecom consumer bill of rights by the end of the year.
