NARUC Notebook

NASUCA adopted resolutions on Lifeline and inmate payphone services, at the state consumer advocate group’s annual meeting, held along with NARUC’s annual convention in Miami Beach. Meanwhile, NASUCA panelists addressed a Conn. decision declaring AT&T’s IP-based video service not to be cable TV, as well as telecom privacy and the Missoula Plan. NASUCA’s Lifeline resolution was close to one adopted by NARUC. It backed the same Lifeline Working Group recommendations and made similar recommendations on Lifeline promotion and outreach through public-private partnerships, state commissions, other gov agencies, and business. NASUCA’s payphone resolution said inmate interaction with family, friends and professionals is an important part of rehabilitation hurt by unreasonably high rates at inmate payphones. The resolution urged policymakers to ensure fair rates, encourage use of prepaid debit accounts as an alternative to collect calls, and cut or eliminate commissions that inmate payphone providers pay state or local corrections authorities for their contracts. On NASUCA panels, Bill Vallee, attorney with the Conn. Office of Consumer Counsel, said the Conn. Dept. of Public Utility Control (DPUC) misclassified AT&T’s video delivery system because it looked only at the interactive on-demand capability, ignoring AT&T’s plans to offer scheduled cable programming like ESPN and CNN. William Durand, exec. vp of the New England Cable & Telecom Assn., said the DPUC erroneously based its ruling on the video delivery technology, rather than the service. Vallee and Durand said the DPUC decision created an unfair, illegal regulatory imbalance. NASUCA had invited AT&T and Verizon to speak, but they didn’t send representatives. Of various federal suits seeking to stop state regulator inquiries into allegations that telecom companies violated customer privacy rights by unlawful cooperation with federal intelligence-gathering operations, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights said states are right to resist “intelligence gathering operations in the guise of law enforcement.” He said broad telephone surveillance actually harms national security because “it diffuses efforts by putting attention on those who pose little or no threat.” He also said it made no sense for the govt. to invoke the state secrets privilege after the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program became common knowledge. On the Missoula Plan, Doug Kinkoph, XO Communications regulatory vp, said the plan “is overly broad and based on a suspect political and legal foundation.” The plan aims to keep carriers whole by shifting access revenue reductions onto consumers and the federal universal service fund, he said: “It'll present consumers with a $7 billion bill.” It also will impair state jurisdiction over interconnection and prematurely deregulate transit traffic, he said. But Joel Shiffman of the Me. PUC staff called the plan “a reasonable but not perfect transition to the broadband world,” because it will eliminate arbitrary distinctions among jurisdictions and traffic types. Work is needed in some areas, like with “early adopter” states that moved to reform intercarrier compensation, he said. -- HK