Important Calls for Phone Customers : PUC is making some significant decisions on deregulation
When we think of telephone service, usually Pac Bell or initials like GTE, AT&T; and MCI pop into mind. However, the letters PUC are more important to California households and businesses. They stand for the Public Utilities Commission--not exactly a household name but certainly a monumental institution when it comes to you and your phone. The PUC sets rates and regulates the phone business for all of California.
The state agency now is overseeing deregulation of local telephone service, which if done prudently should result in lower basic bills and help usher in new technology. If the job is botched, California could be a place of phone haves and have-nots.
Happily, the commission is moving ahead on some of the sticky deregulation issues. A primary tenet in telephone service since the passage of the federal Communications Act of 1934 has been access to basic telephone service at reasonable prices. The fate of this so-called universal service in a deregulated environment has been worrisomely unclear.
Last week, however, the PUC reaffirmed the state’s commitment to access to affordable, basic telephone service for all Californians. In proposing rules on local phone service competition, the PUC said that the companies involved will have opportunities as well as obligations regarding universal service. The big question is what precisely might those obligations and opportunities be?
Currently universal service is defined as voice phone service. That appears to be the minimum to be considered when local telephone service is opened to competition. At 10 public hearings scheduled statewide, the PUC will explore how to keep universal service rates reasonable in rural and other high-costs area and how to protect the service for low-income residential customers. That covers universal service as we have known it.
But should universal service be expanded to include, say, computer hookups? Without affordable access, senior citizens, people with disabilities and low-income or underserved areas might be cut off from the information revolution. The PUC did not propose any rules on this matter and has asked for suggestions.
A big concern about the PUC’s universal service proceeding is whether decisions on the proposed rules will be in place when new companies start to provide local phone service. The PUC is conducting a separate proceeding on establishing rules so that local phone service can be open to competition by Jan. 1, 1997.
Critics maintain that the commission has not made an explicit commitment to universal service in its separate local competition proceeding. The PUC is scheduled to release local competition rules today. The link between local competition and universal service should be spelled out so that entrants clearly understand that when they enter the local market, they assume universal service obligations. That would mean the difference between companies merely paying lip service to universal service, as they do now, and actually being committed to it.
