CPUC Warned Not to Extend Service Quality Rules Beyond POTS

The California Public Utilities Commission would break the law if it extended landline service-quality rules to VoIP, broadband or wireless, the telecom industry warned in comments filed Monday on a rulemaking sought by consumer advocates to update telecom service-quality standards and enforcement (see 2203170072). AT&T suggested the commission instead slash regulations for plain old telephone services (POTS). Consumer, small business and workers’ union advocates supported extending the rules.

Extending POTS metrics to other technologies "would be a misplaced solution in search of a non-existent problem," as well as unlawful, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association commented in docket R.22-03-016. The CPUC hasn't shown any major problems with VoIP or wireless, "nor could it." While POTS has "generally languished in recent years due to disinvestment," cable's IP-based hybrid fiber-coaxial networks "flourished in terms of quality and popularity.” Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications concurred with CCTA.

State regulation of wireless "would be unlawful" because it’s preempted by federal law and exceeds the CPUC's legal authority, said CTIA. "Competitive forces are more than adequately protecting service quality in the wireless market," and the CPUC has cited "no evidence or data to the contrary." Regulating wireless service quality "contravenes the law” and isn’t “supported by facts or policy," agreed Verizon: Many consumers cutting cords "in favor of unregulated services such as wireless is not sufficient reason to impose new standards or traditional wireline rules on these services."

USTelecom said "competitive pressures are more effective at motivating providers to optimize service quality than any regulation would be.” The CPUC lacks authority to regulate VoIP and broadband internet, "both of which are inseverably interstate information services" under FCC jurisdiction, it commented. USTelecom opposed changing a 2016 enforcement framework under General Order 133-D, which lets telcos avoid paying fines by promising to invest twice the amount in their network. Keep the current system "but only in areas where there is a demonstrable lack of competitive options,” said the association: Penalties divert money from network deployment and maintenance.

"The FCC’s regulatory scheme for nomadic interconnected VoIP preempts state regulation," said the Voice on the Net Coalition, citing the FCC's 2004 Vonage preemption order. Service quality metrics make no sense for internet-based voice, it said. "With nomadic VoIP service, the broadband provider may be different at home, at work, at the hotel where you may be on vacation, and at the coffee shop where you have stopped for breakfast."

Remove service-quality rules for traditional wireline because they "are not relevant to or useful in today's market environment,” said AT&T. "Service-quality regulation was first imposed in 1972, as a pure monopoly-era tool to ensure quality where the market could not. That is not the world today, where competition thrives and replaces the need for prescriptive service-quality rules." POTS "serves just a small and declining piece of the market,” it added.

"AT&T and Frontier [Communications] have consistently failed to meet the required service quality standards," which shows "existing enforcement mechanisms and penalties have failed to provide sufficient incentive for carriers to comply with service quality requirements," countered The Utility Reform Network, Communications Workers of America and Center for Accessible Technology. Extending service-quality metrics to wireless and interconnected VoIP would “ensure that all essential telecommunications services receive the same priority and service quality as legacy network services,” and enhance CPUC monitoring of wireless carrier responses to outages, they said.

"Regardless of technology used, voice service is essential for small businesses,” said Small Business Utility Advocates. Fewer POTS installation requests mean CPUC can tighten requirements including for installation and repair time, and apply modified metrics to VoIP, wireless and broadband, said the group: The CPUC should add new metrics for VoIP and wireless, based on Cisco recommendations.

"The Commission’s authority to establish broadband standards continues to be confirmed in case law,” said a rural communities coalition including Inyo, Mono, Nevada and Placer counties and towns of Mammoth Lakes and Truckee. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its decision upholding California’s net neutrality law that “states possess significant authority with regard to broadband,” said the local government group. ISPs stopped challenging California’s law last week (see 2205050041).

AT&T disagreed. "The Ninth Circuit found that broadband internet access service can be regulated by states if there is a distinct and severable intrastate aspect of the service," but the decision didn't "identify any actual, severable intrastate aspect of broadband service." Those who seek to regulate mobile broadband "will need to show there is an actual, severable intrastate activity that can be regulated separately, which, given the inherently interstate nature of mobile broadband service, is likely impossible,” it said.