CA Utility Commission to Regulate DSL

mgrimes writes "According to this story on Internet.com, the California Public Utilities Commission has ruled that it has the authority to regulate DSL-based Internet services in addition to the FCC. Could be a good step in creating more competition in the broadband market... but then again given the PUC's track record, maybe we're all in for rolling DSL blackouts."

Comments

Confused about PUCs?

[thogard]

In most states PUCs are about ensuring that the compaines don't over-extend themselves and go broke. They are not there to protect the customers (other than the ability to get service).

Are there any states that have great PUCs from the point of view of the consumer?

Re:Confused about PUCs?

[technizmo]

Are there any states that have great PUCs from the point of view of the consumer?

Great? No. But the PUCs are often the most effective resource a consumer has for ensuring quality service. They have the teeth to quickly (relatively) levy fines or requirements upon offending corps. On the other hand, the FCC, as a national policy making agency, is not very responsive to regional service issues, and its current management has a heavily laissez-faire attitude.

The telcos offering DSL know this, and that is why they have consistently argued that the PUCs have no authority to regulate online service, seeking to distinguish it from a utility such as normal telephone.

I am personally glad that the PUC in my state (MN) decided to extend its reach and require Qwest to quit its deceptive MSN transfer policy.

Any resource that a customer can employ to help in untenable service situations is currently a Good Thing, since the monopolistic telcos have felt no incentive to provide decent service.

This lack of incentive is due to the failure of deregulation to spurn competition. It has only served to provide temporarily higher profit margins (or rather, lower losses) for the already incumbent monopolies, who spend every last dime trying to build up entry barriers to their market.

My experience with the CPUC

[JoeShmoe]

Before travelling overseas, I signed up for a MCI Worldcom plan that included, along with long distance service, a Worldcom phone card that had very low rates for the countries I would be visiting (UK was 25 cents per minute, France was about 40 cents per minute).

Because I was travelling, I never saw the bill until I returned home. It was then that I discovered the rates on the card and accompanying material were only good for calls TO or FROM the United States. Since I had made several local calls to relatives and friends during my UK and France stays, I had not been billed at those rates. The rates I got charged were as high as $8 per minute.

What was particularly galling was the fact that they could have bounced the call over the Atlantic twice, and I still would have be charges at the most 50 cents per minute.

I called MCI to complain, but they refused to negotiate with me. They insisted that since I had already used the airtime I was required to pay the full amount.

Angry, I flipped over my phone bill and, as per California law, there was instructions for filing a grievance with the California Public Utilities Commission. I was to make out a check for the amount in question and sent it, with my complaint, to the CPUC. I suppose in this fashion the CPUC was acting a big like an escrow agent, holding the money until they determined the outcome.

But it never came to that. A couple weeks after I mailed my letter to the CPUC I got an envelope from MCI Worldcom. Inside was a letter that had been sent to the CPUC and carbon copied to me. The letter basically asked the CPUC to disregard the matter, as MCI had concluded that "in the interest of customer service" and because "there was the chance that an unwary customer could be misled" they were going to only charge me at the 25 cent per minute rate I originally expected to get.

To this day, I'm not sure if this is a matter of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, or the phone company really and truly afraid of whatever big stick the CPUC may wield. However, I am at this point quite glad for the CPUC. However bumbling or inept a government agency might be, they have a process for getting things done and if you are willing to spent the time learning and following it, it's amazing what you can accomplish.

- JoeShmoe

.

Re:My experience with the CPUC

[the_quark]

To this day, I'm not sure if this is a matter of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, or the phone company really and truly afraid of whatever big stick the CPUC may wield.

The phone company in most states is terrified of the PUC.

Way back in the dark ages of 1994 (you know, when if you weren't a millionaire and wanted the Internet at home, you used a phone line), I moved from Manitou Springs, CO, to Colorado Springs, CO. Now, Colorado Springs isn't exactly metropolis, but it's a decent sized city, and I was moving into the middle of it. I had two phone lines - one for voice, one for data - and was assured by the phone company that they'd have both of them transfered within a day or so of when I was planning on moving.

Two days after I moved into my new house, I got a voicemail at work that said, "Well, we don't have enough lines for your second line in that area. In fact, we don't even have enough lines for you FIRST line, so we're giving you a party line [!!!]" I didn't even know that had those, anymore!

I then spent about a week trying to get an answer out of US West about when this was going to be resolved. The answers varied from "next week" to "next month" to "after the thaw" (this was November) to "within the next two years," depending on who I talked to. No one seemed to be exactly sure what the problem was, either.

My hypothesis is that somehow the "not enough lines" bit got flipped, and from there no one knew how to fix it.

Regardless, after about two weeks of this nonsense, I called the PUC. I got a very nice libertarian fellow, and, after I explained my problem ot him, he and I spent another ten minutes chatting about how awful it was that the phone company was a regulated monopoly to begin with.

THE NEXT DAY, I had a voicemail at my office from US West which said, "We're really VERY VERY sorry about all this and BOTH your lines will be installed within the next week." And they were.

The lesson I learned there was that if you don't like the color the paper your bill is printed on - call the PUC and they'll probably get it fixed for you. :)

Re:Libertarian Ethos

[ronfar]

Hmm, so the government that created the AT&T monopoly:

Unnatural Monopoly: Critical Moments in The Development of The Bell System Monopy

Later decided that they changed their minds and broke it up, and this is supposed to give me some faith that government can do good? What about all the damage government did to telecommunications in the mean time? (The Bell monopoly was enforced by the SSSCA's of its day. There was a time when you needed AT&T's permission to hook up a modem The Origins of Tymnet.)

I should point out that I am not an anarchist, protecting people from fraud is one of the police functions that a government should do. However, just because government occaisionally does it's proper job doesn't mean I want it to expand into other areas like controlling what I eat, drink, read, write, and spend money on.

For every good use of government, it seems, they throw up an SSSCA or DMCA. Be aware of the government's culpability in the whole Enron fiasco, Myths About Enron, which they have managed to successfully hide in most of the mainstream media.

My DSL experience or why CA should have regulation

[marian]

Having seen first hand the truly screwed up state of broadband in CA (I've lived here for 17 years now), it's very obvious that the companies involved are actually backpedaling, rather than improving their service or expanding their service areas. For example, the CO near my house was scheduled to be upgraded by Pac Bell last May (so that I could get DSL), then it was supposed to be this May. Now it's not scheduled at all. What is my alternative? I called what is now AT&T cable, but their service is also not available in my area. Next I tried all of the little ISPs offering DSL. Turns out that I'm *JUST* close enough to the phone company's CO to get IDSL. Expensive and slow, but hugely better than the awful dialup connections from my house. Sign me up! 4 months later, I finally have working DSL through Verio and Northpoint Communications. Remember them?

This continues happily for about a year and a half. Then Northpoint suddenly realizes they haven't made money, will never make money, and shouldn't exist. My DSL is turned off with NO notice. Now, I knew it was coming because I'd heard about it in various places for about a week. 4 days after it's turned off, Verio calls to let me know that it's going to be turned off. Very competent of them.

Now I have to scramble to find some other solution to my lack of connectivity. Sprint! They're offering a wireless microwave based connection in the Bay Area. Well, to make this slightly shorter, it wasn't exactly implemented well and wouldn't work. Now what? Time to start calling ISPs again and get service through Speakeasy and Covad. I'd been avoiding Covad for 2 years because of how awful I'd heard they were, but now I have no choice.

Fast forward to 2 months ago. I've been opening trouble tickets with my ISP from the day the DSL was installed by Covad because of intermittent loss of connectivity. (this time installation only took 2 months) They can't figure it out. But they're still happily billing me. The service is worthless and I have a 1 year contract that isn't up until May. This trouble ticket has been open since October. It will never get fixed. At this point, I'm resigned to paying for this POS DSL until I can cancel in May and I start looking for something that might actually work.

Enter Gatespeed broadband. It's wireless. It's not microwave line of sight. It's not satellite. They claim they can install and have it running in a single digit number of days. It's 256k symmetrical, which compared to the far less than 144k I was actually getting out of the DSL that only sometimes worked, is fantastic. It costs about the same as IDSL (expensive). Sign me up! 4 days later it was up. There are occasional glitches, but unlike any of the DSL providers I've dealt with these guys actually tell me what's going on. They own up to the problems, claim them as their own and actually fix them!

So, why should CA have regulation? Because there are zero standards for service, billing, accountability, or anything else pertaining to DSL. Because getting DSL through an ISP means you're dealing with 3 separate companies, they don't have to be accountable. They can point their fingers at each other and say it's not their fault. In the meantime, your service doesn't work but you have to pay for it anyway. They can then turn it off with no notice. This situation is the poster child for government regulation.

The PUC will lose

[Kagato]

It's nice to see the PUC take some action when it comes to highspeed services, but the FCC is pushing hard to have control over all Telco based broadband services. The CA ruling falls on the tails of the MN PUC getting involved with the Qwest .net customer transfer to MSN. MN brokered a settlement that allowed people to get out of MSN. Which Qwest and MSN had made very hard to do.

The problem is, MN didn't have standing to regulate the DSL deal between Qwest and MSN. They had limited standing involving consumer issues mostly regaurding how the new service was advertized. These issues were taken by the Attorny Generals office. Which in MN is extremely agressive.

Insiders in the case and most of the board memebers knew that they no longer had the ability to regulate DSL in the way a non-enhanced service would be. And Qwest/MSN was very quick to point out that the PUC had no authority. What the PUC lacked in standing, they made up for in the ability of being a major pain in the ass. It was cheaper to settle for Qwest and MSN.

Qwest/MSN would have won most likely in federal court to make it an FCC matter. (The FCC takes months/years to hear a case) But, in the unlikely event that they lost, MSN could be considered a "Retail communications seller". Extremly bad for MSN because they aren't a DLEC or CLEC. The fine would be in the millions.

At any rate, CPUC can say they have the right to do this or that. But the LEC decides it wants to get them out of the picture for enhanced services they will win.

Re:that comparison is not valid

[unconfused1]

Well, 'Anonymous Coward', I didn't say it was Enron. I only said that it was a "certain energy company".

On the question of whether or not Enron is a piece of the puzzle concerning the false energy crisis of California, there are a number of articles tracing influences in that market, of which this article, What Cheney's Hiding, is only one.

Here are a couple others:

• Power Price Gouging Secrets
• CA State Senate document (PDF) finding Enron in contemp