CPUC Approves Low-Income Broadband Pilots

The California Public Utilities Commission authorized pilot programs to allow low-income consumers to stack state and federal benefits to pay for wireline and wireless broadband services. At a virtual meeting Thursday, commissioners voted 5-0 for a revised draft (see 2306060048) in docket R.20-02-008. Meanwhile, a consumer group is raising concerns about Verizon’s Friday letter to the commission on its struggles to migrate TracFone California customers to its network. Ensuring those customers weren’t abandoned was a “central issue” in the state commission’s merger review two years ago, Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) legal counsel Paul Goodman said in an interview.

The CPUC-approved test programs will let low-income consumers combine state LifeLine and federal Lifeline and affordable connectivity program benefits. Participants could get access to up to $57.15, or up to $102.15 on tribal lands, for the plans. The wireless pilot includes a free 4G smartphone and unlimited voice, text and mobile data, with two tiers offering different amounts of hotspot data. The wireline pilot includes unlimited 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload speeds, or the highest available service in that location. The revised order allows CPUC to extend the pilots even if ACP ends.

The decision is a “first step toward figuring out how the ACP fits into our existing system of state universal service programs,” CPUC President Alice Busching Reynolds said. Commissioner John Reynolds said the pilots will “deliver tangible and significant benefits above what customer historically received."

Also at Thursday’s meeting, California commissioners cleared nearly $2 million in broadband grants under its Local Agency Technical Assistance program (Resolution T-17790) and California Advanced Services Fund public housing account (T-17791). Members voted 5-0 for both resolutions. And commissioners approved a unanimous consent agenda including an item to set fiscal-year 2023-2024 CASF budgets (T-17782) and grant a North American Numbering Plan Administrator application to adopt an overlay for the 530 area code (docket A.22-09-016).

CforAT plans to send the CPUC a letter by Friday on Verizon’s TracFone migration problems, said Goodman. Verizon asked last week for an extra year to move the prepaid customers that had been on other networks before the merger (see 2306020067). The CPUC didn’t comment Thursday.

Verizon and TracFone have been “dragging their feet” migrating customers from non-Verizon networks, based on their quarterly status reports, said CforAT’s Goodman. The legal counsel estimated Verizon has moved about 63,000 of 234,000 affected customers (27%) about 18 months into a 24-month deadline. And it’s only moved about 19% of California LifeLine customers, he said. Verizon claimed in its letter that it has contacted customers weekly, with some people contacted 50 times. However, Goodman said the companies appear not to have complied with a requirement in the 2021 merger approval to put information about how to transition to Verizon’s network.

The CPUC order set a fine of $90,000 daily if the company had only migrated 20-40% of its customers after two years, noted Goodman. “Verizon can go ahead and take that extra year if it wants to. It’s just going to have to pay about $33 million.” The commission may need to find “other ways to encourage Verizon to do what it said it was going to do in addition to the fine,” he said. The lawyer said he also worries about Verizon saying it will assume customers opted out if they haven’t migrated in three years.

CforAT “would be a little more willing to work with Verizon on this if it were not three-quarters of the way through this transition period,” added Goodman: It can be difficult to reach prepaid customers, especially if they didn’t sign up directly with TracFone, but “Verizon is also making minimal efforts to reach those customers.”

“We are requesting an additional year to migrate customers in California to align with the FCC’s requirement that we allow customers 3-years to consider migrating to the Verizon network, which applies nationwide," a Verizon spokesperson emailed Thursday. "Offering an additional year to TracFone customers to migrate will allow customers to make the network transition on a timeline that makes sense for them." Verizon has worked closely with CPUC staff and provided regular updates as required, the spokesperson added.