Is the new Customer Service Agreement millions of people received in the mail (measuring almost one yard in length), in effect?  NO, not yet. 

The CPUC posted the following: "AT&T:  The AT&T Residential Customer and Business agreements were scheduled to be effective on October 1, 2008.  These three service agreements are not in effect as they are predicated on CPUC approval of AT&T's advice letter filings requesting to detariff currently tariffed services.  These advice letters were suspended on October 17, 2008 for up to 120 days."  The new effective date of the service agreements is uncertain given the continued regulatory review and resolution of the filed public protest on the suspended detariffing advice letters. 

Verizon:  Verizon's service agreement is scheduled to be effective November 9, 2008. Public protests on the detariffing advice letters are due October 29th.  

The AT&T agreement tells customers they will either agree to the terms & conditions or find another carrier.  For some customers like UCAN callers from one section in Coronado, CA, it wouldn't be possible to choose another carrier since AT&T is the only one that services these folks.   It's unclear through what lenses the "powers that be" deregulated based on "market competition". 

Some of the other major flaws in the AT&T agreement included:

• The failure to provide crucial consumer information needed to make informed choices about services & prices;
• The failure to provide the required notices before initiating rate hikes;
• The failure to allow disputes on cramming without paying for unauthorized calls or services first;
• The failure to provide customers with the information needed on potential impacts of agreeing to bundled package/plans;
• The failure to provide the legally required notice of customers' rights;
• The failure to inform customers about caps on their basic service;
• The imposition of "binding arbitration" to prevent other legal remedies;
• The failure to include any legal violations and the failure to include any liability on the part of AT&T; and
• The increase in the company's ability to perform much more in-depth and often unnecessary credit checks.

Read the joint protest letter submitted by the consumer advocacy group TURN and the DRA.

If these Customer Service Agreements are permitted by the CPUC, millions of customers would need to hire attorneys to review, analyze and let consumers know what rights have been deleted. The joke of this entire mess is that most consumers ahve only one or two carrier choices today. The argument could be made that there is "market competition" in technology; not in carrier choices. One would think we've learned hard lessons with deregulation that lead to overe $850 billion of our taxpayer money going to clean up corporate greed.  Why would anyone expect the major telecom companies to not want to make a financial killing like Wall Street?  Over the past few years, consumers have felt powerless to fight injustices or alleged they were just too busy.

Now is the time to stand up and be counted by writing the Commissioners at the CA Public Utilties Commission, by writing your legislators, & writing the Governor
who appoints the Commissioners.  It's time to let everyone know how you feel.

The CPUC staff, commissioners and the CA legislators get paid VERY well to represent the people and it seems as though the city, state and federal levels have taken our money, spent it, mismanaged it, felt no obligation to protect us, enforce or even maintain any regulations.  As "sorry" as we are, the positive functions of conflict resolution can be heard from our voices.