The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing today on a proposal to revamp state regulation of wireless and wireline telecom carriers.
The agency will hear from academics, industry executives, consumer groups and others.
Commissioner Susan Kennedy is author of the telecom reform plan and a separate initiative to scale back the bill of rights for telecom consumers.
The bill of rights, approved last year in the face of opposition from the mobile-phone industry and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is on hold as the CPUC-with two new gubernatorial appointments-reviews state guidelines governing carrier disclosure to consumers of marketing, billing, service initiation and contract termination fees.
Meantime, the California State Senate is poised to begin consideration of Assembly-passed legislation to write into state law a telecom bill of rights modeled after consumer protection rules approved by the CPUC in May 2004.
It is unclear how, or whether, Kennedy’s telecom reform proposal might impact her efforts to overhaul the bill of rights.
