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HomeMy WebLinkAbout19910507.docx Minutes of Decision Meeting May 7, 1991 In attendance were: Commissioners Joe Miller, Ralph Nelson and Joe Miller and staff members Birdelle Brown, Stephanie Miller, Eileen Benner, Gary Richardson, Judy Stokes, Lori Mann and Myrna Walters. Issue discussed was:  Call Trace. Commissioner Smith started the discussion.  Said she was trying to recall the Company's proposal.  They are proposing to use Call Trace on Thursday (May 9).  There is a $10 per successful trace if customer implements it but Company manual trace that has always been there in place is free.   Lori Mann said if we do approve it, suggest putting  some wording in about not choosing one over the other. Commissioner Nelson asked if that was part of the deal? Lori Mann said yes but would like to see that in writing.  Dan Poole personalized a lot of it.  Would like to see the company agreement.   Commissioner Smith said - don't have a problem letting the company roll out the new Call Trace as long as the customers have the option and the company lets them know that they have a choice. Gary Richardson said that would not prejudice your decision on whether it is Title 61 or 62 by rolling that out?  Maybe that should be in writing, too. Commissioner Smith said if we thought that prejudiced the decision we wouldn't let them roll that out. Commissioner Miller said he thinks it is clear that is involved.  Asked about the ACLU argument of why there should be no charge. Commissioner Nelson said he thought it was because they thought it would be cheaper to do it electronically. Commissioner Smith said the fact that there is no charge for that is historical. Eileen Benner said Dan Poole was very insistent that the automatic was cheaper than manual.  Discussed when they spoke to the $25.  They wanted to initiate manual charge of $25 and automatic of $10.  Later changed both of them to $10. -2- Original proposal made more sense from an economic sense. Commissioner Smith said anybody at anytime could be victim of abusive calls and this would be available to everyone.   Birdelle Brown gave examples of lower charges. Commission indicated they weren't here to discuss price. Commissioner Miller said as he recalled:  the initial argument of ACLU is it is Title 61, we shouldn't approve pricing issue until we make jurisdiction decision.  If you allow it to be priced at $10 now it will stay that.  If we come to the conclusion it is 62, we will never be able to pay that. Commissioner Smith said if we decide it is 62, we can't decide on that anyway. Commissioner Miller said if it was rolled out at $10 and you said no jurisdiction, it would be harder to change it later.  Apparently this $10 charge is motivated ... it is not entirely cost-based .. from cost point of view $10 is more than cost.  But there is a partial deterrent to the unnecessary use of it is the company's rationale. Commissioner Nelson asked if Commission was prejudicing anyone if they provide the service they provided before, and make determination on 61 or 62 on the automatic, later?  Guess it is going to depend somewhat on what they say in their message.   Commissioner Miller asked Commissioner Smith if she had the belief it was more in the nature of a public service offering and the costs should be embedded in rates rather than incremental? Commissioner Smith said it seemed to her that this is something that could happen to any customer anytime, and there should be a way to work through that.  It didn't offend her to have all ratepayers pay for it.  It also seems that at the time you are upset and having to deal with it, it might not be the time to say it is going to cost you x bucks, she was not. Commissioner Miller said if Commission decides it is 61, could come to the conclusion that it should be without charge. -3- Commissioner Smith said we could do that.  In the past it hasn't been that way.  Maybe only those using the service should pay for it.  Could make argument either way. Commissioner Miller said if that is a possible conclusion we can come to, does letting it be turned on with $10 charge now and no refund provisions, would that make it more difficult for us to reach that conclusion if we reached the conclusion it was Title 61? Commissioner Smith said it wouldn't make it more difficult for her.  The price would be irrelevant.  You would look at the cost of the service, how many times people would be using it, etc. Commissioner Miller said he didn't think we have enough in front of us to say the $10 is necessarily right.  Since we don't know if its 61 or 62 and if price is right, so in that circumstance, are we better off to say you can do it how you want and we will reserve all our rights to decide or should we say don't do it until we decide? Assume if we say you can offer it but you can't charge for it, they probably won't offer it. Argument in favor of letting them do it is there has been some degree of public demand for the service as an alternative to Caller ID.  ACLU has called for this.  There may have been some ethical commitment to that.  Company is trying to respond to this perceived public demand. Lori Mann asked - but didn't you ask Dan Poole that?  Was it in response to caller ID? Commissioner Miller said no. Commissioner Smith said she thought this was rolled out with Caller ID. Commissioner Miller asked - what is our timeline on this case? Stephanie Miller said we recommended that you might want to wait for testimony on Caller ID. Eileen Benner said staff is ready to proceed on it as a non-technical offering. Commissioner Miller repeated what staff thinks. Eileen Benner responded.  Don't expect company to come -4- forward and charge for improvements to the system that essentially don't improve your basic service. Commissioner Smith said if we tell them not to do it until we are done, we are making the judgement for the customers that it is better for them to use what is already in place rather than what U. S. West wants to offer.  We are substituting our judgement for the customer.  Do we want to make that judgement for them?  You have to use what we have decided, not what U S West has set up. Birdelle Brown said thought there was some technical reason why they couldn't stop it Thursday. Commissioner Smith said their theory is it is a Title 62 offering and we can't tell them what to charge. Gary Richardson asked - won't they be in an interesting position to now say we can't offer it? Commissioner Miller said the strongest reason for either saying don't do it or saying do it but don't charge, would be if we felt it was highly probably it shouldn't be charged for and its Title 62. Commissioner Nelson said he didn't have any notion. Commissioner Smith said she didn't either. Commissioner Miller said he thought Eileen Benner's point is worth considering. Commissioner Nelson said there is going to be a decent argument it is a Title 61 service but can't see how he would come down on it.  Could make argument on public safety aspect.  That certainly has to be why its in place now and how it was a non-charge service.  Think there is at least a chance we would decide its Title 61 but don't know that he would change the implementation but we should insist on some control over the script. Eileen Benner said if they make automatic known to the general public and tell about the manual being free, if they only hear about automatic, they will be steered away from manual.  Need to make it clear that there are both services.   Commissioner Nelson asked how widely used this was? Stephanie Miller said they indicate there aren't many. -5- Eileen Benner said she thought it was less than 100 a year. Commissioner Nelson said if we can do something disruptive in the next 90 days, there will be very few that need to use it that when those people see the advertising, they will recognize that there is still a free service available.  There are only a few customers that would be disadvantaged. Gary Richardson said they said they would let it be know through the news media, not advertising. Commissioner Miller said it would be nice to think we can control this by involving staff, am starting to wonder about the burden we put on the staff on the Caller ID case, getting staff involved in CSCs.   Commissioner Nelson said there have only been 9 denials on Caller ID. Commissioner Miller said - but implementation has not been entirely satisfactory.  Asked Commissioner Smith what she thought? Commissioner Smith asked - do we want to tell them not to roll it out til we decide or recognize some legitimate reason why some people may want to pay the $10 and let them roll it out?  Comes to those two choices. Commissioner Nelson said he would let them roll it out.  If proper information gets out we could see instead if anyone would want to pay $10.00. Eileen Benner explained the timing on the $10 or the manual.  You want that number and you may pay to get it quickly. Commissioner Nelson said he didn't think the public is disadvantaged by having that choice.  We will have a decision within 90 days. Commissioner Miller said he wished he had a stronger feeling for what our decision on pricing would be because if its Title 61, and if we think it has such strong public interest features that its one of the things that should be available to any customers without worrying about cost and if we felt strongly about that principle. -6- Commissioner Nelson said he didn't know if this is one of the bedrock principles.  Think that is the basis for the freeze.  Argument could made that there will always be that segment of the publication that would need that.  Almost think you could find people that are more likely to have a need for that service who would be more likely to use it more than once and you might want to charge for that.  Perception of what a harassing phone call is would be a question. Gary Richardson spoke to paying to get repairs quicker. Commissioner Miller said other precedent is time of day.  If we are going to follow that line, if you should be able to get time of day at no cost, you should be able to get something that protects you from harm free. Commissioner Smith said tracking down a harassing call is much different than time of day. Commissioner Miller said he thought where it is the same is whether some things have additional costs or not.  If time of day should be free, this should also. Commissioner Smith said she thought the attitude of phone service is not transitional. Commissioner Nelson said we are into component pricing. Eileen Benner said Friday they said they would keep no cost in effect while this was at issue. Commissioner Miller said he could go along with the idea of pricing questions, that we are going to get it done soon, that there is in existence a comparable, yet unfamiliar service, that perhaps we should either have them not do it or do it without charge until we can decide. Commissioner Nelson said he would do this:  If we find that it is Title 61, would have no qualms about changing the pricing.  But given the way things are, would let them implement it on the basis of their proposal with the pro viso that we get a chance to approve the script, i.e., they should say the 1-800 number more than once and should repeat the $10 charge. Commissioner Miller said one thing we could consider that would make the point that we feel strongly about repricing and we are not endorsing this charge until we have full investigation, is the question of refunds.  If we found -7- it was 61 and decided on different pricing later that anyone who had paid this charge during the interim would have a refund option. Commissioner Smith suggested you could do that in the same way that people pay interim rate increase while you are doing rate case stating that if the outcome is different, it dates back to the date of the order and they are entitled to their money back.  Company wasn't willing to offer refund, if the decision you are making is whether it is 61 or 62 and you gave notice of that and the decision comes sometime later, it has either always been 61 or 62 and therefore when you get to the decision date and say it is always 61, then you could go back and say you paid too much or you didn't pay enough.  When you give notice of the investigation, you put them on notice, that if it is a regulated service that it was always regulated and therefore we get to set the rate and if it is different than what they charged, people get to pay more or less. Commissioner Nelson said - could make it subject to refund. Commissioner Miller said he thought Commissioner Smith's legal analysis of doing refund is good.  Would go along on that basis because putting the refund in there makes the point that we are considering looking at it but let the service out and see if there are people who think it is useful. Commissioner Smith said you are putting the company on notice that they are going to have to keep records.  It shouldn't be a big burden.  If we get it done within a reasonable time, they shouldn't complain. Commissioner Miller said as soon as a subscriber uses the service, they become aware to the company. Agreed to let company offer the service, with conditions set out above. Lori Mann asked if staff should review the script: Commissioners said yes. **Asked that "being without prejudice" be added. Meeting adjourned at 12:55 p.m. -8-         DATED at Boise, Idaho this       day of July, 1991.                           PRESIDENT                           COMMISSIONER                           COMMISSIONER ATTEST:                               Commission Secretary 0047M