Agenda Date:  January 24, 2001
Agenda Item:  2E

Docket:   UT-001953
Company Name: Qwest Corporation

Staff:   Gargi Bhattacharya, Telecommunications Analyst
   Glenn Blackmon, Assistant Director-Telecommunications
Penny Hansen, Public Affairs 

Recommendation:

Suspend the tariff revision filed by Qwest Corporation, in Docket UT-001953.

Discussion:

This filing presents a Custom Calling feature called “I-CALLED.”  I-CALLED 
allows customers to leave their name and number following a voice prompt which 
occurs on the sixth ring on lines when there is a “ring no answer” condition. 
If the calling party chooses to accept the service, they will pay $0.95.  Once 
callers record their name and number, I-CALLED will attempt to deliver the 
information to the called party by returning the call periodically for up to 
four days or until the called party answers, whichever comes first.  Qwest has 
filed this service as a new service with  banded rates of $0.25-$1.50.

One of the first questions to arise with a banded rate plan is whether it meets 
the criteria set out in WAC 480-80-045, Filing of Banded Rates.  According to 
the WAC the company must provide, at a minimum, a statement detailing how the 
public interest will be better served by the use of banded rates as well as 
cost studies showing how the minimum rate covers cost and the revenue impact of 
the tariff.  The company believes that this rate banded filing is beneficial to 
customers because it introduces a new service not previously available and 
allows Qwest to test its prices.  The company has satisfied the relevant cost 
study and revenue impact criteria. 

Staff disagrees with the company that this is a new service and believes that 
the public interest would not be best served by the deployment of the service 
as currently proposed.  Since the automatic activation of the service 
effectively changes a customers basic dial-tone service, Staff feels that this 
is not a “new” service but a modification to an existing basic line service.  
The I-CALLED plan is automatically activated by Qwest on customer lines 
immediately in six wire centers and will be activated in five more through the 
course of the year.  Customers are not initially given a choice as to whether 
or not they would like to subscribe to this service and may unwillingly be 
subject to repeated calls from the I-CALLED service.  Furthermore, customers 
are not given any advance notice informing them that this service is 
automatically appearing on their line. If the customer does not want to have 
I-CALLED on their line they must contact the company to have it removed.  
However customers are not informed that they have the opportunity to 
negatively-respond.  Unlike other Custom Calling features which remain latent 
on customer lines until activated by the customer, such as last call return or 
three way calling, the customer does not initially select to activate the 
I-CALLED service, instead they must contact the company to explicitly 
deactivate the service.    

While the plan has potential benefits for some customers, various aspects of 
the I-CALLED plan raise some concerns regarding Qwest=s marketing practices, 
particularly in the  local service market where Qwest continues to maintain a 
position of market power.  

Staff is primarily concerned with customer notice and satisfaction. The company 
proposes no notice and/or advertisement of the service and has no plans for 
customer education.  Staff is concerned that since the service requires a 
negative-response from customers who may not appreciate the disruption of their 
phone line, a lack of notification will cause customer confusion and 
frustration.  Staff has extensively discussed the need for customer 
notification with Qwest and has indicated that Staff would recommend allowing 
the tariff to take effect with adequate notification, but Qwest has not 
addressed Staff’s concerns.

Conclusion

Qwest has not committed to modify its filing to address Staff=>s concerns 
discussed above.  Staff therefore recommends that the Commission suspend the 
I-CALLED filing in Docket No. UT-001953.