CPUC Delays Votes on Wireless CPNI, Planned Frontier and AT&T Investment

The CPUC held the wireless CPNI order for further review at Peterman’s request, said a hold list. Staff held the Frontier items without a reason and an agency spokesperson didn’t elaborate. The items are held until Nov. 8. As part of the consent agenda, commissioners voted unanimously Thursday for a proposed decision to make administrative changes to the rural and urban regional broadband consortiums grant account as part of implementing a 2017 law to revamp the California Advanced Services Fund; and for a resolution adopting a 5.38 percent public-purpose-program surcharge for prepaid wireless services in 2019, down from 5.55 percent last year.

“We’ve been meeting with offices to encourage them to hold the proposed decision” on wireless CPNI, emailed Christine Mailloux, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) managing director-San Diego. “With this hold, we’ll continue to encourage the Commission to step in on this critical issue through further analysis and background regarding the problems and the current legislation.” The proposed decision listed California’s new privacy law as reason to deny consumer groups’ petition. Mailloux urged a “harder look” at whether it sufficiently protects consumers. The state law “has too many loopholes and does not go far enough to provide the tailored and effective protections that consumers need over the information generated by the use of their phones,” she said.

CTIA opposed possible wireless CPNI rules. “The wireless industry supports uniform protections for consumers’ data," said CTIA Senior Vice President-State Affairs Jamie Hastings. "The Petition’s suggested approach would create a discriminatory regulatory environment that would be confusing to consumers."

CPUC delay on the privacy item wasn’t surprising because an administrative law judge wrote the proposed decision and Thursday was the first time it appeared on commissioners’ agenda, said Tellus Venture Associates President Steve Blum, a consultant for local governments. It might mean Peterman got “some questions from other commissioners about it or that she's seeing something that she wants to think about some more.”

The commission also postponed votes about Frontier and AT&T failures to meet service-quality metrics in 2017. It proposed approving Frontier plans to invest about $2 million, and AT&T plans to invest $4.4 million. Rules permit a carrier to invest no less than twice the amount of its annual fine to enhance service quality in a measurable way within two years.

Commissioners planned a closed-door conference with legal counsel Thursday on applications for rehearing by Cox, TURN, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates and others of the 2016 decision on telecom service quality that established the system of investing twice the fine amount. That might explain the delay, said Blum: “It wouldn't be unusual for them to want to figure out what they want to do with the appeal before they implement the decision.” Mailloux "could see a scenario where they are reconsidering this element of [the order] and want to wait to adopt the resolutions to coordinate their response.”

The Frontier item is unrelated to a meeting scheduled Monday between the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and Commissioner Liane Randolph about CETF’s petition seeking enforcement of conditions in the CPUC order to OK Frontier’s acquisition of Verizon’s wireline assets, said CETF counsel and former CPUC and FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong. CETF filed an advance ex-parte notice about the coming meeting with Randolph, to whom the docket was recently reassigned. The ex parte notice says the meeting is Saturday, but Chong told us it's Monday.