Industry, Consumer Groups Disagree on SMS Classification in California
Industry clashed with consumer groups on classification of text messaging, in comments at the California Public Utilities Commission released Monday. Text messaging is an information service that doesn’t pay into state USF and other programs, said CTIA and the California…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Cable and Telecommunications Association in separate comments on a CPUC rulemaking that responded to a CTIA petition (see 1706290049). Like email, another information service, text messaging is a store-and-forward service, meaning carriers' servers store messages before delivery, CTIA commented in docket R17-06-023. Text messaging requires “extensive information processing, including protocol conversion” and allows users to retrieve data by querying electronic databases, for example when a user sends a text to a short code and receives movie listings, it said. Also, it would be unfair to assess charges to carrier-based messaging but not internet messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage, CTIA said. Determining that text messaging isn't subject to the charges won't affect funding of the programs because the top four carriers always have treated SMS as an information service not subject to the fees, CTIA said. CCTA supported CTIA in comments, saying the CPUC also should rule that voicemail and directory listing services are information services. But the Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network and the Center for Accessibility Technology said text messaging is a telecom service that should pay into the USF and other public programs. "Even though the FCC has not directly ruled on the service classification of text messaging, FCC precedent and federal law properly classify text messaging as a telecommunications service,” said the consumer groups’ joint comments. The FCC ruled in 2004 that services involving net protocol conversion aren't necessarily information services, they said. “Applying the FCC’s test in the IP-in-the-Middle proceeding, text messages are properly telecommunications services. Text messaging uses ordinary customer equipment with no enhanced functionality and texts originate and terminate on the public switched telephone network. To end users, text messaging does not undergo net protocol conversion and provides no enhanced functionality. Additionally, customers generally do not subscribe to a service separate from, or pay rates that differ from, telephone services.”