The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.
FCC
The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau (EB) entered into a Consent Decree with AT&T to resolve its investigation into whether AT&T placed unauthorized third-party charges on its customers’ wireline telephone bills, a practice commonly known as cramming. To settle the matter, AT&T will issue refunds to all consumers charged for the sham directory assistance subscription service since January 2012. The refunds are expected to total $6,800,000. AT&T will also pay a $950,000 civil penalty. The Consent Decree also requires AT&T to: cease billing for third-party products and services on its wireline bills, with certain exceptions; implement a compliance plan to ensure that its customers have authorized the services for which they are billed; and file regular reports with the EB to track its compliance with the Consent Decree and its consumer protection obligations.
In this case, AT&T contracted with two Cleveland-area companies, Discount Directory, Inc. (DDI) and Enhanced Telecommunications Services (ETS) to bill customers approximately $9 per month for the Companies’ purported “directory assistance service.” In May 2015, while investigating the Companies’ principals for drug-related crimes and money laundering, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration uncovered that DDI and ETS were sham operations that never provided any directory assistance service to the customers billed by AT&T. Although it bore ultimate responsibility for the charges placed on its customers’ bills, the FCC said that AT&T never required proof from the companies that they obtained customer authorizations to be billed for their service and that the record showed that they did not in fact obtain such customer authorizations. In addition, the FCC said that AT&T ignored a number of red flags that the charges were unauthorized, including thousands of charges submitted by the companies for nonexistent, disconnected, or otherwise “unbillable” accounts.
Connecticut
The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority is seeking comments on a petition from the Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) regarding, among other things, access to broadband service for residential, business, and municipal facilities. Comments are due no later than 8/31/16. Persons seeking Participant status in this proceeding should file a motion with the PURA no later than August 9, 2016. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 8/5/16.
Maine
The PUC opened an inquiry into the rules that must be adopted in order to implement the provisions of recent legislation (Act) addressing ILEC provider of last resort (POLR) obligations. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 7/21/16 and 7/14/16 The Act requires that implementing rules be adopted by January 1, 2017. The PUC seeks input about the specific requirements and procedures that it should adopt in order to implement the law. The due date for comments has been extended to August 22, 2016.
