Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel

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The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) opposed several important regulatory decisions by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) in 2008 as the OCC sought to maintain reasonable telephone rates for Ohio’s consumers.

Ohio’s largest telephone companies continued to raise the prices of features such as call waiting and call forwarding in 2008. The PUCO permitted these increases without review based on elective alternative regulation plan guidelines it had approved in recent years.

Elective alternative regulation enables local telephone companies to raise their rates for commonly used features while agreeing to cap the rates of basic local service and basic Caller ID. With the deregulation of basic services, however, the telephone companies may apply to the PUCO to increase both.

The OCC vigorously opposed requests for rate flexibility allowed under elective alternative regulation and continued to alert consumers to the resulting rate increases.

In addition, AT&T Ohio, Cincinnati Bell, Embarq and Verizon requested that some of their exchanges be subject to basic local service alternative regulation, which enables telephone companies to raise basic rates if a competitive test is met determining whether an exchange is open to competition and that residential customers have reasonably available alternatives.

Under basic local service alternative regulation, a telephone company may increase its monthly basic local rate by $1.25 and monthly price of basic Caller ID by 50 cents each year. Lifeline customers are exempt from such increases.

The OCC continued to oppose basic local service alternative regulation for the large telephone companies, each of which submitted applications for multiple exchanges. For the second consecutive year, Cincinnati Bell increased its basic local service rates for its two largest exchanges, Cincinnati and Hamilton, by the maximum allowable amount.

The Supreme Court of Ohio denied the OCC’s appeal of PUCO decisions favoring AT&T Ohio and Cincinnati Bell and upheld the PUCO’s basic local service alternative regulation rules.

The OCC also won a victory when a penalty was assessed against Verizon for failing to adhere to previously agreed upon standards of service reliability for its customers.

Companies granted pricing flexibility for more local telephone exchanges

(Case Nos. 07-1312-TP-BLS, 08-107-TP-BLS, 08-594-TPBLS, 08-912-TP-BLS, 08-1281-TP-BLS (AT&T Ohio applications); 08-1007-TP-BLS (Cincinnati Bell application); 08-1041-TP-BLS (Embarq application); 08-989-TP-BLS (Verizon application)

Over the objections of the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC), the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved most of AT&T Ohio’s requests for basic local service alternative regulation in 2008 while similar requests were filed by Cincinnati Bell, Embarq and Verizon.

The OCC testified that AT&T Ohio failed to pass a competitive test for exchanges and that the company failed to show that viable, competitive and reasonably available alternatives exist. The OCC also asserted that residential consumers who want only basic dial tone service could pay higher bills while having few, if any, comparable choices.

In 2008, the PUCO decided AT&T Ohio requests covering 22 of its 192 Ohio exchanges. All but eight were approved for alternative regulation. In addition, Cincinnati Bell and Embarq received alternative regulation for basic service for four and 25 additional exchanges, respectively. The PUCO denied 19 exchanges in the Embarq case.

Currently, the PUCO has approved 166 of AT&T Ohio’s exchanges for alternative regulation. Cincinnati Bell has received approval for six of its 12 exchanges, while Embarq has received approval for 29 of its 165 exchanges. Requests by Verizon for 24 of its 244 exchanges and AT&T Ohio for four additional exchanges are pending at the PUCO.

Ohio Telecom Association’s request for MTSS waiver

(Case Nos. 00-1265-TP-ORD, 05-1102-TP-ORD)

In May 2008, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) denied a request by the Ohio Telecom Association (OTA) to allow all of OTA’s member companies to receive a permanent waiver from the service termination rule within the Minimum Telephone Service Standards (MTSS).

The regulation prohibits disconnection of a customer’s basic local service for nonpayment of past due charges if the customer makes a payment sufficient to cover the company’s tariffed rate for stand-alone dial tone, including all taxes and mandated surcharges. Telephone companies have the ability to disconnect other bundled services, such as cable TV and Internet.

The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) opposed the waiver request, asserting that granting a waiver for all of OTA’s members without companyspecific documentation of harm would undermine the consumer protections in the MTSS. The OCC also argued that telephone companies should continue to provide basic service to customers who pay that portion of their bill.

In its decision, the PUCO ruled that the OTA had not submitted documentation showing any telephone company faced a hardship in meeting the MTSS rule and denied the blanket waiver.

Supreme Court of Ohio grants AT&T Ohio and Cincinnati Bell alternative regulation for basic local services

(Supreme Court of Ohio Case Nos. 2007-0570, 2007-0659)

The Supreme Court of Ohio issued opinions upholding decisions by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approving alternative regulation for basic services in certain AT&T Ohio and Cincinnati Bell telephone exchanges.

The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) had appealed the two PUCO decisions, arguing that the PUCO unlawfully granted alternative regulation to AT&T Ohio and Cincinnati Bell by failing to require either company to demonstrate that competition existed for stand-alone basic services (dial tone and local calling without voicemail and call waiting), or that customers who only wanted basic dial-tone service had alternatives. The PUCO also allowed the companies to use the availability of more expensive telephone bundles to show alternatives to basic local service.

The Court decided that the PUCO properly found that competitors’ bundles (which included call waiting and call forwarding) were in competition for AT&T Ohio and Cincinnati Bell’s stand-alone basic service. In addition, the Court ruled that Ohio’s alternative regulation law did not require a competitor to serve throughout an exchange.

As a result of the decisions, Cincinnati Bell increased the monthly price of basic local services and basic Caller ID by $1.25 and 50 cents, respectively, each year for certain exchanges while AT&T Ohio has yet to officially raise its rates.

The Cincinnati Bell case involved the company’s two largest exchanges, Cincinnati and Hamilton. The AT&T Ohio case involved 136 of the company’s exchanges.

Verizon held accountable for missing service benchmarks

(Case Nos. 00-1265-TP-ORD, 07-511-TP-UNC)

The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) won a victory in March 2008 when the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) imposed a $250,000 penalty on Verizon for failing to meet service benchmarks that the company had previously agreed to.

The OCC requested that the penalty be assessed after Verizon failed to meet its monthly obligation to restore customers’ service outages within 24 hours at least 85 percent of the time in each of its four Ohio districts.

The PUCO directed Verizon to apply the funds to expanding broadband initiatives in Ohio. Verizon, in conjunction with Connect Ohio and the Ohio Broadband Council, deployed broadband service in the Lake Waynoka community in Brown County.

Customers with telephone bundles run increased risk of disconnection

(Case Nos. 00-1265-TP-ORD, 05-1102-TP-ORD)

img src="images2/manwithbill.jpg" alt="Photo of Man Looking at Bill" width="409" height="261" />In November 2008, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) issued a ruling enabling certain competitive telephone service providers to disconnect a customer’s local service for nonpayment of any charge on the customers’ bill. The decision creates an increased risk of disconnection for customers who are able to pay for the basic local dial tone service that they receive, but not for the complete package of bundled services for which they are charged.

In opposing the change, the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) and other consumer groups argued that such a decision would contravene long-standing state policy by taking away from customers the option to maintain basic service through partial payments.

 

Home Water Communicating with Consumers

OCC has had to cancel many of its services, including its consumer call center, due to recent budget cuts. We realize you may continue to need assistance with your utility services. OCC's website provides free access to publications and resources.

You may seek assistance with utility complaints from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio:
800-686-7826. For complaints about non-utility related services, you may call the Ohio Attorney General
at 800-282-0515.