State seeks to monitor phone service quality

By Bryan Gentry

Published: June 20, 2008

The State Corporation Commission wants to require quarterly service quality reports from Verizon and other local phone companies.

The commission is considering a new set of rules that would apply to providers with at least 10,000 customer lines.

Under the rules, providers would document their response time for restoring service in outages, installing new phone service, meeting customer appointments, and responding to customer phone calls.

Ken Schrad, spokesman for the State Corporation Commission, said these rules were in place before, but the commission canceled them in 2005.

Their reinstatement is a result of a conflict with Verizon.

In February, the commission found that Verizon was not meeting the regulatory agency’s minimum service standards. But Verizon was not fined because the commission agreed the current reporting rules were too vague, Schrad said. That led to the new rules requiring a report every three months.

The commission will hold a public hearing on the new rules at 10 a.m. Sept. 25 in Richmond. The hearing will be broadcast on the commission’s Web site, scc.Virginia.gov.

Until Aug. 21 the commission will accept written comments, which can be submitted on the agency’s Web site or mailed to: Clerk of the State Corporation Commission, Document Control Center, PO Box 2118, Richmond, VA 23218-2118.

Written comments should refer to case number PUE-2008-00047.