PacBell’s Zone Billing System Stirs Rebellions

A year ago this month, Pacific Bell inaugurated Zone Usage Measurement--ZUM for short--in San Diego County. The premise behind the first change in local telephone billing since the 1930s was simple: Arrange an equitable system whereby customers’ most frequent local calls would be free of charge.

But achieving that goal has produced more than its share of headaches for the phone company and public alike.

“Before ZUM, the local calling areas for San Diego County had not been changed for 50 years, and they did not come close to reflecting the growth of the area,” said Katie Flynn, a spokeswoman for Pacific Bell. “There were a great many inequities--people from Alpine could call downtown San Diego, for example, but if you lived in Del Mar, you paid a toll to call Penasquitos.”

Besides significantly modifying local calling areas, ZUM set up three additional categories of phone charges within the county, with higher prices for longer-distance calls.

“What we were ordered to do by the PUC (California Public Utilities Commission) was to set up a system where everybody had the same type of access to their contiguous communities, and nearby communities of interest, where customers shop and do business,” Flynn said.

Flynn said the conversion cost Pacific Bell $8 million in billings during its first year. “Most everybody received more areas to call at reduced rates than they had before, so we felt the vast majority of San Diego County benefits from ZUM,” she said.

Not everybody in the county was happy with the new arrangement, however, and ZUM’s first year has been marked by a steady influx of legal challenges from various communities. “Frankly, there have been some problems,” Flynn said. “It would have been impossible to please everybody.”

The first revolt against ZUM was centered in Poway, whose residents were charged a toll for calling Escondido but were allowed to call communities from Mira Mesa to El Cajon for free under the original plan.

Believing their city had far stronger ties--and made far more telephone calls--to Escondido than to East County and North San Diego, Poway officials, using statistics provided by Pacific Bell, determined that the conversion would cost their community as much as $1 million per year in increased phone charges.

“There was a lot of righteous indignation among the City Council members,” said Poway City Manager Jim Bowersox. “We felt we were taken out of the Escondido calling area because it was cheaper for the phone company’s conversion plan--that the arrangement was serving PacBell’s switching stations, not Poway residents.”

The city filed a protest with the PUC and persuaded the commission to hold a public hearing in Poway, rather than Los Angeles or San Francisco. In March, the PUC ruled unanimously in Poway’s favor, and ZUM was modified to place Poway back in the Escondido calling area.

“We wanted to make sure our residents could show up in force,” Bowersox said. “In the face of the protest, the PUC really had no choice but to side with us. It was an extraordinary procedure for the city, and it cost us several thousand dollars. But we made that money back in the money we saved on our own phone bill.”

Since the Poway case, grass-roots protests against ZUM have surfaced in Rancho Penasquitos and the North County community of Pauma Valley. In both cases, the protests are aimed at including the communities in Escondido’s calling area.

Last month, Rancho Penasquitos residents argued their case at a hearing in Poway before Administrative Law Judge William Turkish, who will rule on whether the PUC should modify Penasquitos’ calling area.

Acccording to Pacific Bell statistics, Penasquitos residents made 52,905 calls to Escondido, while calling 35,625 times to La Jolla and Pacific Beach, which is within their free calling zone. But phone company officials argued against the change, saying it would cost PacBell almost $150,000 per year.

The Pauma Valley appeal has not yet been scheduled for litigation.

Phillips said: “We recognize the customers’ position, but the Poway case should not be taken as a blanket ruling that all of these protests are going to be approved.”