A proposed ban on fees for unlisted numbers put on hold
For the second time in two years, the powerful telecommunications industry has blocked a consumer-oriented bill that would have barred companies from charging land-line customers for unlisted numbers.
On Tuesday, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) put on hold for this year a bill that would have eliminated monthly unlisted-number fees. The measure faced certain defeat in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, where it had been heavily lobbied by dozens of advocates for telephone and cable television companies.
“We didn’t have enough votes,” Pavley said, noting that the telecommunications industry has “a high degree of presence in the Capitol and spends a lot of time meeting with members.”
Although she strategically put off action on her proposal until 2010, Pavley made it a point to tell the 11-member committee and a hearing room packed with industry lobbyists that the “core policy issue” behind her bill was “about protecting privacy rights.”
About half of all California residential telephone users opt for unlisted numbers, and they should not have to pay for a privilege already granted by law to customers of cellphone and small land-line phone companies, Pavley said.
Telephone carriers, which have given at least $1.6 million in political contributions in the last 15 months, counter that there’s a strong economic argument for charging for unlisted numbers. They contend that fees are needed to offset the costs of publishing White Pages phone books and providing directory assistance services, which are required by law.
“If unlisted numbers are free, fewer people would be inclined to list their number,” said Timothy J. McCallion, Western regional president for Verizon Communications Inc., the state’s second-largest phone carrier. A decline in the value of the White Pages directory or its elimination altogether could lead to lost jobs, McCallion warned.
According to the energy committee’s analysis of the bill, not collecting charges for unlisted services could prove costly to the state’s four largest phone companies.
The state’s biggest, AT&T; Inc., would lose about $50 million a year in revenue. Frontier Communications Corp., a small company that operates near Sacramento and in Northern California, said it would give up $1 million of its $38 million.
AT&T;, with about 7 million residential lines, collects $1.25 a month for an unlisted number. Verizon, with 4 million lines, gets $1.50 a month, as do Frontier and SureWest Communications, another small Sacramento-area company.
Pavley warned that those rates, though modest now, could quickly climb if they follow the experience of other states, which charge as much as $5.50 a month for an unlisted number.
Phone companies have failed to provide hard evidence that they would incur continuing costs by not listing someone in the telephone directory, Pavley and consumer groups said. The public has strong views about privacy, Pavley said, and people don’t like the idea of paying money to protect that basic right.
Pavley said she planned to spend the next eight to 12 months taking her crusade outside the politically charged halls of the statehouse.
“To level the playing field,” she said, “you need to get the public to pay attention.”
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