Cut the Static and Postage Costs, GTE Ordered
The California Public Utilities Commission ordered GTE California on Wednesday to reduce static on its telephone lines by 30% during the next three years and to develop a plan for cutting the cost of postage on bills to its 3 million customers.
The actions were the latest in a series of PUC orders aimed at prompting GTE to reduce costs and improve the quality of its telephone service. The commission has been examining the company’s operations after customer complaints made during public hearings in 1988.
GTE could improve its transmission quality by replacing equipment and improving maintenance of its telephone lines, said Norman Johnson, the administrative law judge who wrote the orders for the PUC.
Most customers of GTE California, formerly known as General Telephone, are in the Los Angeles-Orange County area, but the company also serves parts of Northern California, as well as Palm Springs and Santa Barbara.
Rate Increases
In the early 1980s, GTE received approval for several substantial rate increases after telling the PUC that it needed increased revenue to pay for new equipment. During the 1970s, customers had complained strongly about the quality of the company’s service.
Johnson said that GTE transmission quality has improved since then, because much new equipment has been installed, but that further improvement is needed.
After studying complaints about the physical size of GTE’s bills, the commission concluded that the bills are made up of too many pages. Carole Kretzer, a PUC spokeswoman, said GTE’s billing format does not make efficient use of paper and that the utility has been paying twice the normal postage to send some bills.
“Anything they can do to reduce postage will reduce the budget, and that will lead to lower rates” for customers, Kretzer said.
Billing Problems
The commission’s order requires GTE to develop and submit a plan for reducing the number of billing pages within 150 days.
To deal with the problem, GTE has ordered new bill-printing equipment, machinery that will be delivered later this year, according to Stephanie Bardfield, spokeswoman for GTE.
“We’re taking steps to make the bills more user-friendly--to reduce the pages without reducing the size of the print,” Bardfield said. “There are lots of other areas where we’d like to spend, other than postage.”
The commission also said Wednesday that GTE has also improved its relations with its customers since the early 1980s but that more work is also needed in this area. The company is responding to customers’ complaints more promptly, the agency said, but it added that some customers have reported discourteous treatment by GTE representatives.
The PUC cited a 1986 poll in which 94% of GTE’s customers said their service was adequate, good or excellent. A 1982 poll showed that only about 65% were satisfied.
