Telecom Providers Disagree With Consumer Groups on Streamlining Calling Rules

The need for protections from slamming and cramming “increases with competition in the marketplace because providers must work harder to acquire new subscribers,” said a filing led by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC). Providers “have a greater incentive to use unfair and deceptive tactics to take subscribers from competitors and generate new revenue from existing customers.” The FCC should strengthen its verification process for customers who switch carriers “to protect against fraudulently obtained or manufactured consent,” the filing said.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau should retain the role it plays in resolving slamming complaints, the NCLC-led comments said. The agency should also strengthen proposed cramming rules by including wireless service, “allow[ing] states to have an active role in protecting subscribers” and “provid[ing] stronger protections from unauthorized” callers. In addition, it should retain “protections for subscribers who rely on paper bills and customer service calls" and "use the FTC’s definition of 'clear and conspicuous' notice," said the filing, which was also signed by MediaJustice, Public Knowledge and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry.

AARP urged the FCC to consider the needs of older adults as it revises rules. “Older adults are less likely to subscribe to internet-based services than are their younger counterparts” and “more likely to use traditional bill payment methods, like mail.” The FCC should streamline but retain core billing rules, it argued, calling for keeping requirements that providers prominently display a toll-free phone number on each paper bill and make a physical address available upon request. “Eliminating these requirements would be premature and would likely disproportionately harm older adults, who are more likely to receive paper bills and less likely to have reliable high-speed internet access in the home.”

CTIA countered that the NPRM is “a welcome and critical step toward implementing the Administration’s government-wide deregulatory initiative, which aims to promote government efficiency and foster competition and innovation.” Some legacy slamming and billing rules “no longer reflect current market practices, technologies, or consumer behavior” and provide “little to no benefit to consumers,” CTIA said. “Maintaining outdated slamming and billing requirements, notwithstanding these changes in the marketplace, imposes unnecessary costs and other compliance burdens on providers and requires them to divert finite resources from innovation in service offerings and service approaches, ultimately hindering improvements to the customer experience.”

The rules discussed in the proceeding “were adopted to address problems that arose in a very different marketplace and are no longer necessary in their current prescriptive form,” said USTelecom. “As the Commission has recognized, marketplace and technological changes have rendered many legacy rules unnecessary, imposing costs without providing commensurate benefits.”

NTCA likewise welcomed the commission’s recognition in the notice that “prescriptive slamming and billing rules” were “created decades ago to address a problem that appears all but nonexistent in today’s market.” They should be “pared back at a minimum in light of advances in technology, evolution in how consumers prefer to procure services, and shifting competitive dynamics,” NTCA said. The FCC should also “modernize and simplify” its billing rules. As an initial matter, the group highlighted that it's “not aware of any members that include billing for third-party telecommunications services any longer.”

NTCA agreed with the FCC “that the deceptive practice of switching a consumer’s telephone service provider without [the] customer’s knowledge or consent has become nearly, if not entirely, nonexistent.” The group said “the prevalence of bundled services and the decline of a standalone retail long distance toll market in particular have led to far fewer concerns.”