REMARKS OF BLOSSOM A. PERETZ, ESQ.
DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF THE RATEPAYER ADVOCATE
PRESENTED BY CARL WOLF BILLEK, ESQ.
ASSISTANT DEPUTY RATEPAYER ADVOCATE,
DIVISION OF THE RATEPAYER ADVOCATE
BEFORE THE HONORABLE FREDERICK F. BUTLER
Newark, NewJersey
May 16, 2000 2:00 p.m.
Good afternoon. My name is Carl Billek. I am an Assistant Deputy Ratepayer Advocate with
the Division of the
Ratepayer Advocate. I am here today to voice the Ratepayer Advocate's support for the
proposed changes to New Jersey
Administrative Code Title Fourteen, Chapter Eighteen, Subchapter Three point Five, the
"Outage Credit" rule.
Last year, when the Board of Public Utilities initially sought comment on the readoption
of Chapter Eighteen, the
Ratepayer Advocate responded, proposing a modification to the "Outage Credit"
rule. Under our proposal, where a cable
television operator knew or reasonably should have known of an outage, subscribers would
not be required to notify their
operator of the outage in order to obtain a credit.
While the Board did not propose to modify the "Outage Credit" rule with our
proposed language verbatim, it did so in
spirit. The Board proposed its own modifications to the "Outage Credit" rule,
lowering the period of an outage required to
receive a credit from six hours to three. Additionally, the Board proposed that where an
outage affects ten or more cable
subscribers, an automatic credit shall be provided. The Ratepayer Advocate supported both
of these pro-consumer
modifications to the "Outage Credit" rule.
More recently, the Board decided to alter its previously proposed modifications --
specifically, the conditions under which
a cable operator would be required to provide an automatic credit. Under the new proposed
"Outage Credit" rule, a cable
operator would be required to provide an automatic credit where an outage lasts for three
or more hours and impacts the
operator's distribution plant to the extent that one fiber optic node or more is affected.
While this modification does not appear as responsive to consumer's needs as the previously proposed "ten subscribers or more" provision, the Ratepayer Advocate recognizes that the earlier provision may have been difficult to implement, because cable operators may not have been able to determine that service to such a small number of subscribers was interrupted.
The Ratepayer Advocate believes that the Board's "Outage Credit" rule, as currently proposed, is still in the best interest of cable subscribers and does not place an unfair or unreasonable burden upon New Jersey's cable operators. Therefore, the Ratepayer Advocate recommends the adoption of the Board of Public Utilities' "Outage Credit" rule without further modification. Thank you.