Teletruth

Dear CAC Members,

This week we have filed an official grievance under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and with Congress pertaining to membership of the CAC. Our belief is that the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee does not represent consumers, which it is supposed to be representing, but instead has allowed the telecommunications industry to be able to block activities that protect the public interest.

First and foremost, we write this separately to the CAC members to apologize to those advocates who we admire and believe have served this Committee well. While you may not agree with or condone our actions, we are not doing this because of some personal need, but because our belief is that the consumer comes first.

In reference to the Washington Post, we had asked the Post to examine the materials from the Committee, and while we are surprised they actually wrote something, we are glad that this issue is now being made public.

Tom Allibone, an 20-year expert in phone bill auditing, has represented Teletruth for the last two years and we were glad to have been elected to serve. Bruce Kushnick has been the alternate. However, it became apparent that at every turn, the industry, and not the consumers' voice, was the loudest being heard — and it has distorted the true meaning of the CAC's mission: "…make recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission regarding consumer issues within the jurisdiction of the Commission and to facilitate the participation of consumers....in proceedings before the Commission."

Case in point? Teletruth's continued research and audits on phone bills clearly demonstrates that phone bills are still unreadable, that there is a multitude of truth-in-billing errors, not to mention that mistakes on phone bills are common, that customers do not have enough information from the carrier to make a detailed examination of their own bills, and that many are paying for services they didn't order or don't need. This includes ALL wireline and wireless services.

And it is easy to prove that phone bills are unreadable — Please tell us the mistakes on this SBC California bill, the mistakes on this Verizon New Jersey bill, or the truth-in-billing errors on this Verizon New York bill.

SBC California bill http://www.teletruth.org/SBCphonebillmistakesl.html
New Jersey, Verizon bill http://www.newnetworks.com/NJphonebill.htm
New York, Verizon bill http://www.newnetworks.com/dirtyphonebill.htm

If members of the Committee can't do it, how can the average customer?

To read a summary of our last report see: http://www.newnetworks.com/phonebillinto.html

And we tried to make this Committee examine the facts. However, Tom Allibone was bumped from talking about this situation on the June, 2004 Truth-in-billing meeting. Instead, the lawyer from USTA, the local phone company association, and the lawyer from CTIA, the Cellular/wireless association, spoke of how there weren't any problems. It was important that NASUCA also spoke, but there again, they represent government agencies. Where were the independent consumer voices?

We don't bring this up for personal reasons, but only to point out that Teletruth has important, incontrovertible documentation from phone bills that this Committee did not hear nor discuss with the full Committee (We were offered to distribute it, but not to be properly presented and vetted.) And, it should also be noted that NASUCA had petitioned the FCC to examine problems with questionable long distance and wireless added charges —CAC should have defended the public interest, but instead never took a stand on this important filing.

Shirley Rooker, CAC chairperson, mentioned in her email to the Committee that the Committee does not work by consensus and that its goal is diverse points of view. Ms. Rooker also questioned Teletruth's credentials as a ".org".

Teletruth has been an experiment in customer advocacy. The group is independent of any phone company or political group and works on a pro bono basis, including our lawyers, researchers, auditors, etc. And there is virtually no other independent, nationwide group focusing exclusively on phone and broadband issues in the US. Anyone questioning our work or intent should read our three years of work, which includes helping to supply documentation that led to class action suits. The first case, having been settled, found 50,000 Verizon New Jersey customers were missing their small business discounts and they have received hefty refunds. And we are the first group to use the Data Quality Act to challenge at the FCC on behalf of customers. We have also become a clearinghouse for those disenfranchised customers who have increasingly had problems with their phone bills or broadband services, and do not get satisfactory responses from the companies or even the regulators, such as the FCC.

Our current funding to allow us to take time to do our work on wireline and wireless phone bill issues has been a grant from the California Consumer Protection Fund, and we are working with UCAN, a San Diego based advocate group. This work, and our other non-Teletruth business activities (LTC Consulting and New Networks Institute) allows us to do the work for Teletruth and stay solvent. And unlike many that are really faux-grass roots organizations, funded by corporations, we defend the public interest, paid for out of our own pockets.

However, the ".org" designation is being used by some on this Committee that is questionable. For example, Alliance for Public Technology, APT, lists its sponsors as the phone companies — BellSouth, Verizon, SBC, and SBC California. (This represents virtually all of the former Bells — 8 different merged firms, from Ameritech, Southwestern Bell, Pac Bell and SNET to Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and GTE.) This group and others are directly tied to Sam Simon’s Issue Dynamics, the major architect of the Bell companies' political skunk works, designed to create the illusion of 'grass roots', but are instead 'astro-turf' groups, directly supporting the phone companies' policies.

We also need to address this issue of "balance" and "representation". Ms. Rooker wrote: "Some of you have questioned why industry should be represented. Under federal guidelines, there is a requirement that a federal advisory committee be 'fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed'."

How is it "balanced" when 1/3 of the Committee represents the phone companies and cable companies? For example, CTIA's largest members are Verizon, and SBC & BellSouth (Cingular), while USTA's members are Verizon, BellSouth and SBC, and then Verizon is also on this board, and they help fund APT — all of which are represented by their lawyers, not customers.

Where were the Hispanic or Chinese members, where is the representation for low -income families, where are the independent wireless grass roots groups, such as NYC Wireless? That is diversity. And while AARP represents seniors, is that group supposed to only have one group representing the 40+ million seniors? And do we need to have only a small handful of those discussing disabilities, as was the original intent of this committee?

In this case, "balance" is in the eye of the beholder, where the FCC has chosen to define the work for a Consumer board as the companies that are, in fact, those who's business practices are in question — especially when it pertains to the phone bills that customers receive every month. If you go out and actually talk to consumers and ask them if it is appropriate for 1/3 of the Committee to be defending the needs of the phone companies on the "Consumer Advisory" board, do you think that they would agree with the FCC's definition? Maybe they should be surveyed and find out.

Ms. Rooker also stated that this was not a consensus organization. "The column states that the CAC is a consensus organization. That is not so and I told him that several times." Really? There was never any vote on truth-in-billing that we were aware of. We also heard that the phone companies wouldn't back our suggestion to conduct a survey of what customers know about their phone bills and this that was also killed as advice to be given to the FCC. New Networks Institute, in 1993 and 1995 conducted nationwide surveys that found literally no one could answer basic questions about their phone bill charges—data we were glad to share with the Committee. No other study we know of ever contradicted those findings and yet, the Committee could come to a consensus to suggest the FCC do a survey — and there was never any vote to determine if it was a useful thing to present to the FCC as advice.

Teletruth believes that the residential customers and small businesses were slighted in all of this. It is their voice that is not being heard at the FCC. We have made this point about the lack of any small business representation at the FCC numerous times. And there is no Consumer advocate at the FCC.

We had hoped that this Committee would be that voice of reason and take a stand to protect the public interest. We were wrong. With the exception of Commissioner Michael Copps, who's "Always On" campaign pointed out that there were problems with truth-in-billing that were not being solved, the FCC does not represent the public interest first.

Maybe the Washington Post got it right —-"Next time, Powell might consider this radical idea: Appoint 35 ordinary consumers with no hidden agendas and no axes to grind."

And to those on the Committee who have served faithfully and are committed to the public interest — we hope you will consider our point of view, which we believe to the majority of what the average consumer believes. The Committee's members need to not be influenced by the overwhelming position of the phone companies to protect their own interests, but the Committee needs to rise to the occasion and becomes a fair and balanced voice for consumers — with proper representation.

Bruce Kushnick, Chairman, Teletruth, Executive Director, New Networks Institute

Tom Allibone, Director of Audits, Teletruth, President, LTC Consulting