The FCC should investigate reports that carriers are...

The FCC should investigate reports that carriers are forcing customers from traditional copper phone service, said a petition from Public Knowledge, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and eight other organizations filed with the commission Monday. “Complaints often state that customers are being involuntarily moved to fiber or IP-based service (or some combination thereof), even if those new technologies fail to serve all of the user’s needs or will be more expensive. Denying basic phone service to people who have relied on the network for decades violates the network compact that has successfully guided our communications policy for one hundred years.” A commission investigation is necessary to ensure the “continued vitality of the fundamental values that underlie our network, including universal service,” the petition said. The FCC has said in approving the IP trials it wants to preserve longtime principles for customers in the IP transition, “but now, the Commission is at risk of losing control of the network transition by allowing carriers to push their customers off of the traditional networks -- in violation of their obligations as telecommunications carriers -- simply to cut costs or push customers into higher cost services or packages, generating more revenue for the carrier,” the groups said in the filing. Others signing the petition include groups like the Office of the People’s Counsel-District of Columbia, that filed petitions with local PUCs alleging customers are being pushed from copper service against their will or knowledge (CD March 27 p10).