November 1, 2007—Today, the California Public Utilities Commission fined AT&T $900,000.00 for failing to repair residential phone outages in a timely manner. AT&T was found to be non-compliant with the initial out of service (“IOOS”) standard for year 2006.
For the second year in a row, AT&T has failed to meet the standard imposed on it by the Commission for repairing residential out-of-service conditions. This standard is specific to AT&T and was created as a result of a successful complaint filed by the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) against AT&T. In the 2001 CPUC Decision, the Commission found that AT&T (then Pacific) had violated the Public Utilities Code and Commission orders with its poor repair service.
Although the Commission exempted AT&T for those months in 2006 in which severe storms and flooding hampered it ability to repair service in a timely manner, they still found that AT&T’s performance to be substandard for three remaining months in 2006. DRA discovered that AT&T cut its labor force in 2006 and believes that this must have negatively impacted the company’s ability to meet its repair standards.
The Commission’s standards for AT&T are based on reports that AT&T files with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as do several other California local telephone carriers. By examining these reports, DRA has learned that other carriers located in the storm impacted areas in 2006 were able to repair service at least twice as quickly as AT&T. Furthermore, of the 192 local telephone carriers nationwide that report out-of-service information to the FCC, AT&T ranks near the bottom and is better than only two. This conclusion is based on the averages from 1996-2004. Out of fairness to AT&T, DRA did not include averages for 2005-2006 because of the weather related problems AT&T experienced in California. However, were 2005 and 2006 to be included in the calculation, AT&T’s performance would be the worst in the nation.