The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday fined Pacific Bell US$309,000 for not submtting customer-satisfaction data about its high-speed network access service.
The PUC fined the West Coast telco after it failed to provide survey data about the quality of its residential and business ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) data-transmission services.
As part of a March 1997 agreement, the commission granted Pac Bell most of a requested rate increase on condition that the company submit customer-satisfaction survey results every six months. The agreement dictated that Pacific Bell also offer billing credits to certain ISDN customers to make up for poor service.
In its first submission of survey data, Pacific Bell dispatched representatives to the commission that didn't have and couldn't explain missing survey data, the PUC said.
"They had a deadline of December 1, and the [survey data] wasn't forthcoming, and they were fined for it," said Armando Rendon, PUC public information officer. "The commission had to go do an investigation to get the correct data."
When an investigation finally unearthed the data, the commission found a decline in ISDN service quality immediately following the rate increase. Service improved slightly by that fall.
Pacific Bell spokesman John Britton said there was "some discrepancy" about whether the witnesses arrived at the PUC without certain knowledge, but acknowledeged that the company did make "administrative errors" in its report.
"We're not arguing with the decision," Britton said. "We've admitted some administrative problems, but now we're focused on moving forward." He blamed the errors partly on the fact that Pac Bell was submitting the report for the first time, noting that the company must provide 150 reports per month.
The PUC attributes that number to the amount of routine information that must be passed on to the commission on a regular basis. This includes service interruptions, directory assistance reports, call volumes, and so forth. "They've been doing it [providing monthly reports] for 10 years," said Richard Fish, senior engineer for the PUC's telecommunications division.
Among the service problems cited by the PUC were installation difficulties and slow response times to repair requests.
Pacific Bell, which is a unit of SBC Communications (SBC), is supposed to provide the PUC with service-quality data through 31 December 1999, and must absorb all costs arising out of complaints of "poor" or "terrible" installation or repair service during any three consecutive months.
Britton said Pac Bell has set up a help desk to provide customers with technical support for the use of their ISDN equipment, even though that's normally outside the domain of the telco.
Under Public Utilities Code, the commission may impose a penalty of between $500 and $20,000 for each day an offense is not rectified.
The surveys don't show what Britton says have been substantial improvements in "on-time" service installation and repair. Company data shows that installations performed on time rose from 82 percent in June 1997 to 90 percent in June 1998. Repair delays over the same period declined from 27 to 18 hours, Britton said.
