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Despite hundreds of consumer complaints from residents in and around Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Public Service Commission has refused to vote itself the authority to threaten AT&T with a fine up to $175,000 for poor service.
Ignoring an agreement by AT&T to adhere to minimum service standards in return for permission to acquire BellSouth Corporation in 2006, the Commission oddly decided not to enforce those conditions for the protection of AT&T customers. On Wednesday, in a 3-2 vote, the PSC instead decided to “study” the matter and to further consider whether or not it should impose the same minimum service standards on all of Louisiana’s phone companies.
Campbell voted for the authority to fine AT&T. He serves District 5 in northern Louisiana
Commissioner Foster Campbell, of Bossier Parish in northern Louisiana, was stunned by the vote’s results.
“You’re telling AT&T that no matter what they do, no matter how bad their service, we’re not going to do anything?” he asked.
Campbell told his fellow Commissioners he’s worn out after taking large numbers of calls from upset residents in northern Louisiana.
Field also voted for the measure. He serves District 2 in southern-central Louisiana
This is the second time the PSC refused to fine AT&T and instead “study” the matter. Meanwhile, customer complaints from the Baton Rouge area continue to pour into the PSC offices.
Commissioner Jimmy Field, who represents the Baton Rouge area, told AP his office had been swarmed with consumers complaining about the length of time to get service installed and outages lasting more than 24 hours. Field wanted the PSC to hang the fine over AT&T’s head again.
Complaints against AT&T in Louisiana also involve lengthy waits for repair call appointments, delays in getting new lines installed, missed appointments, and extended service outages.
In just four months last summer, the Commission confirmed 435 of the 778 complaints lodged across the state against AT&T.
Apparently if the problems don’t impact the residents you represent, there isn’t a problem.
The three commissioners that voted against the proposal to potentially fine AT&T said as much.
Skrmetta was the ringleader of the three opposed to potentially fining AT&T. He serves District 1 in east Louisiana
PSC Commissioners Eric Skrmetta, of Metairie, Lambert Boissiere III, of New Orleans, and Clyde Holloway, of Forest Hill said it wasn’t fair to single out just one company.
Skrmetta went further and said he hadn’t seen many complaints in his district, north of Lake Pontchartrain. But he had received complaints about some of AT&T’s competitors.
Boissiere voted against the measure. He represents District 3 in central Louisiana
Boissiere, despite voting against the proposal, delivered a verbal spanking to the AT&T representative on hand.
“I don’t like your methods. I don’t like your style. I understand where my fellow commissioners are coming from,” Boissiere said.
Debbie Canale, the executive director for regulation for AT&T Louisiana, wasn’t much impressed with Boissiere’s comments.
“Our customers vote with their money and would do business with competitors, if they were unhappy with AT&T,” Canale offered.
Our Take
The three commissioners who voted against giving themselves the power to make their regulatory authority count don’t belong on any Public Service Commission. Any member of a review board should be concerned first and foremost with the interests of the residents they represent. The three Louisiana commissioners who voted against the proposal failed to do that. They should be removed immediately.
The only way to impress telecommunications companies under your review is to have the power to make them pay attention to your rulings. Stiff fines for repeated violations (and 435 in just four months is an incredible number) will make any company sit up, take notice and fix problems.
Without it, verbal scoldings are little more than lip service to a provider that can afford to be arrogant, especially in rural Louisiana where competitive choice is hardly bountiful.
Canale’s response to the Commission boils down to, “if you don’t like our service, leave.” If only every Louisiana resident could choose another landline provider if they wanted.
Holloway, the third "no" vote, represents District 4 in western Louisiana
Ignoring a company’s problems in one region of the state virtually guarantees those problems will eventually visit another. It is short-sighted and inexcusable to ignore hundreds of valid complaints, condemning residents to more of the same in the future. Voting (for a second time) to “study” the issue is an insult to residents and little more than a stall tactic.
The Commission’s suggestion it wants to impose regulatory fairness comes despite a clear agreement, less than four years old, that AT&T signed onto as part of its buyout of BellSouth. It says AT&T will commit to certain standards of service in return for regulatory approval of the merger. AT&T already sought to renege on that agreement in mid-2009 when it asked the Commission to suspend fines as part of their “study” about regulatory policies across the state.
So much for that hard-fought consumer protection deal. Evidently, what AT&T agrees to one year is fodder for their lobbyists the next. If AT&T wants changes, can consumers demand some changes of their own that assure this company will provide quality service?
As usual, AT&T’s regulatory affairs never give consumers a good deal. For 435 residents of Louisiana, it also gave them no dial tone and a lengthy wait to get it back.
At for Commissioners Skrmetta, Boissiere and Holloway, the only question that should be on the table is whether they represent residents or AT&T Louisiana.
That is something worthy of careful study.
Louisiana's Public Service Commission is made up of five commissioners, each with their own district to represent.
In LA, consumers are sinners and corporations are saints
What a load of propagandistic crap by Commissioner Campbell. I have been a customer of South Central Bell, BellSouth, and now AT&T for over 30 years. I only wish government worked as well as my phone service. I can’t stand it when a blow hard, like Commissioner Campbell, tries to make a name for himself by attacking “evil corporations”. Corporations that are among the largest employers in our state; who invest millions in infrastructure and our communities. If I didn’t like AT&T, I would have left years ago for my cable company’s phone service, Vonage or just use my cell.
Corporations are not the evil ones here. It is politicians who put personal gain over the good of their constituents that are the evil ones. Propagandists that will do anything to be in the press.
What is particularly distasteful are politicians like Campbell and Fields who are so anti-business they will fight to run business and jobs out of Louisiana long before they attempt to bring business in. This anti business rhetoric is good for no one, certainly not our great State. You try to vilify corporations that employ your constituents and give back far more to our state than any socialistic politician such as yourself. You time has passed Commissioner Campbell. It’s time you retired to some commune somewhere where you can sit around a campfire and chant about evil corporations.
I don’t think this is an issue of punishing corporations that deliver good service and jobs to Louisiana. This is an issue of holding companies accountable to a minimal level of service.
In your area, it sounds like you have several options for service. Where most of the complaints about AT&T are coming from are in northern, more rural areas of Louisiana where that competition barely exists, if at all. Most rural parts of the state have no cable alternative, and wireless cell service may or may not provide an alternative for voice calling.
What is clear from our coverage of this issue is that providers like AT&T and Verizon are moving to compete and deliver better service in urban areas, and allow rural areas to slide. And why not? Where are those customers going to go?
For a Commission that exists to oversee what is de facto monopoly service in many parts of the state to ignore its most effective tool to ensure compliance is a dereliction of their responsibility.
AT&T can continue to reap the benefits of operating in Louisiana fine-free by simply providing the kind of service you are enjoying. But it’s clear they are not doing that consistently, and even with the negative press, the complaints keep pouring in.
I think the system works best when there are checks and balances in place, especially where consumers don’t have a consistent competitive choice where they can exercise their option to leave a bad service provider.
Better to say Stop the Crap by Campbell!
phillip. I appreciate what you are saying, but in most areas, including rural there are multiple choices for communication including wireless service. In fact, you know as well as I do that landline service is losing market share at ar ate of 10-20% annually in some areas. This share is going to wireless and competitive cable offerings. If you are so intent on punishing companies for what is a dying business, then you destroy any and all investment incentive. Rural areas lose. Stop focusing on penalties and focus on incentives that help phone companies improve service. I’m convinced that broadband incentives are the answer. With broadband you can have a number of local phone options in addition to wireless. That should be the focus of Commission Campbell, not penalties but incentives, tax or otherwise to build out broadband
Last year, we took a drive into northern Pennsylvania, just one of many areas where no cell phone service exists and broadband is a telephone company product — no cable service whatsoever. In these rural areas, customers aren’t going anywhere because there are no alternatives. I agree that where sufficient competition exists, landline losses are ongoing unless providers retool to provide broadband and other value-added services.
AT&T and companies like it have spent millions in state and federal legislatures to secure precisely the “incentives” you wrote about — statewide franchising, deregulation, discarding universal service requirements… even printing a phone book. They’ve won those incentives repeatedly in several states where they provide service and consumers got the short end of the stick. Not only were the freed from service standard responsibilities, they also delivered “competition” at prices the same or even higher than the competition. In Wisconsin, nobody paid anything except higher prices when AT&T won statewide franchising for U-verse.
Another example is Verizon throwing rural communities overboard in favor of Frontier Communications. We’ve seen the results of prior deals — disaster for landline customers and bankruptcy for the buyer.
Fair incentives are one thing — I’m all for incentives that drive deployment of fiber optics and better broadband, for example, as long as the provider agrees to not redline neighborhoods and communities along the way.
I believe in rewarding companies that deliver good service, if only with my willingness to do business with them. AT&T doesn’t need many incentives to provide DSL service in many communities — they realize without it they’ll continue to lose landline customers. That was the driver of U-verse in the first place — a way to hold onto customers who consider landline service unnecessary.
But your solution seems to suggest the only penalty a bad actor should face is the potential loss of customers, something unlikely to happen in areas where those customers have no alternatives. That’s why oversight boards exist, to protect ratepayers from utilities that have few incentives to meet the service standards they agreed to.
Assuming Louisiana residents don’t like AT&T, and do have wireless options, show me which option a resident has for unlimited wireless mobile broadband service. There aren’t any serving rural Louisiana. Instead, if you’re lucky, you can secure 5GB of service for $60 a month from a player like Verizon or AT&T Mobility.
The telecom industry has always pulled out the old chestnut that any oversight and regulatory controls will “destroy investment” yet a highly regulated phone company provided profitable service for 75 years across the United States. Cable companies face some regulatory controls and they aren’t hurting either. Moderate degrees of regulatory reform have already been implemented in Louisiana, yet the problems persist. Further deregulation solves those problems how, exactly?