What’s Still Free? The Time of Day

The California Public Utilities Commission gave consumers the time of day Wednesday.

The PUC unanimously rejected a request by Pacific Bell that it be permitted to charge 20 cents each time someone calls its recorded time-of-day service. The calls are now free.

“The commission is trying to preserve basic exchange telephone service to the extent possible,” PUC President Donald Vial said. “People feel time is basic and comes with telephone service. People feel strongly about it.”

The commission also ruled that Pacific Bell and General Telephone can no longer assess a 1.5% late payment charge on telephone bills with balances due of less than $20. Since August, 1982, the telephone companies have imposed late charges on overdue bills of more than $10.

Pacific Bell had proposed turning over the time service to private companies that would offer the time for 20 cents a call on a 976 prefix number. It offers the time on 853-1212 in Los Angeles and 415 POPCORN in Northern California. Nineteen cents of each call would have gone to Pacific Bell and one cent would have gone to the service provider.

Pacific Bell estimated that the number of calls would decline from 480 million to 165 million a year if a charge were levied. That would generate $31.4 million a year, of which $20 million would go toward reducing rates for basic phone service by an unspecified amount.

But the commission concluded that Pacific Bell’s data was too “scanty” and “vague” to support its request and ruled that it is in the public interest for Pacific Bell to continue to provide free time-of-day service. Pacific Bell contended that 40% of its customers never call for the time of day.

The commission did grant Pacific Bell’s request to discontinue a separate free service that provided the time to 83 businesses and government agencies that copied the time information on their own recording equipment.

“The PUC refused to butter the POPCORN” for Pacific Bell, said Sylvia Siegel, executive director of Toward Utility Rate Normalization (TURN), a San Francisco-based consumer group. Charging for time-of-day calls would have been another instance of the “unfair boosting of the total price of local service by unfairly breaking off pieces of services and charging more for them,” Siegel said.

A Pacific Bell spokesman said the company hadn’t seen the rulings and therefore had no comment. A General Telephone spokesman said his company also hadn’t received the rulings but believes its late payment practices already conform with the order.

For example, General Telephone prints on each bill the date when charges will be assessed as ordered Wednesday by the commission, he said. General Telephone also rebates late payment charges on billing errors, which the commission also ordered.

“It’s just plain not fair to customers who do pay on time to carry the burden for customers who habitually pay late,” the General Telephone spokesman said.

Pacific Bell collects $40 million a year in late payment charges while General Telephone collects $8.4 million a year.

Siegel called the changes in late payment charge practices “an improvement,” but added that her group would have to study the lengthy decision.

“We have a problem with late billing charges because of the confusion of the dates of when the bills are issued and when they’re mailed and when they’re due and that sort of thing,” she said.

Most Southern California Gas customers to receive refunds. Page 37.