BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2213
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2213 (Fuentes) - As Amended: April 27, 2010
Policy Committee:
UtilitiesVote:12-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill updates the low-income residential telephone
(Lifeline) service to reflect current telecommunications
technology options. Specifically, this bill:
1)Declares that if alternative technologies are used to provide
lifeline telephone services, the technologies should provide
comparable access to emergency and community services as
landline services, and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC)
must ensure that low-income citizens using such technologies
continue to have access to reliable, high-quality, and
affordable voice telecommunications services.
2)Replaces the definition of "residential" for California's
low-income residential telephone service with a definition of
"household"-defined as the principal place of residence of a
lifeline subscriber.
3)Provides that a Lifeline telephone service subscriber be
provided with one Lifeline subscription at his or her
principal place of residence.
FISCAL EFFECT
Absorbable costs to the PUC, which has an existing proceeding on
this topic.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author, this bill is intended to
modernize the current Lifeline program, which provides
AB 2213
Page 2
discount telephone service for low-income residential
customers, to give customers more choices when applying the
Lifeline program discount.
2)Background . In 1987, the Legislature approved the Moore Act
with the goal of providing high quality telephone service to
all Californians regardless of income. The Moore Act provided
that each telephone corporation shall provide a discount rate
for basic residential telephone service to low-income
customers. Historically, the PUC and the wireless telephone
companies have taken the position that wireless telephone
service is not a residential service, so the Lifeline program
is only available to landline customers.
In 2007, the PUC completed a proceeding referred to as the
Uniform Regulatory Framework (URF), which resulted in the
deregulation of most remaining rate controls of the four
largest telephone corporations in California due to a
determination that there was effective competition for
telephone service in almost all areas of the state through the
proliferation of cell phones, cable companies providing
telephone service, and internet-based telephone services. One
result of the URF is that these telephone companies' basic
telephone rates will not be regulated in the future and the
companies may increase the rates with little notice. To
address the problem of potential rate shock, the PUC has
opened a proceeding to determine how to set Lifeline discounts
in the future and to allow Lifeline customers more access to
competing telecommunications providers.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081