Technologie i telekomunikacja · 7.02.2003

Interstate Access Tariffs-Protections Against Risk of Uncollectibles

This document makes recommendations to incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) seeking to revise the deposit provisions of their interstate access tariffs to increase protection from the risk of uncollectibles. The document recommends that incumbent LECs consider whether the following possible tariff provisions might address the risk of uncollectibles, making additional deposits unnecessary: Revise interstate access tariffs to define the "proven history of late payment" trigger for requiring a deposit to include a failure to pay the undisputed amount of a monthly bill in any two of the most recent twelve months, provided that both the past due period and the amount of the delinquent payment are more than de minimis; reduce the notice period for refusal or discontinuance of service from 30 days to some shorter period for customers that receive bills quickly enough to allow review and dispute; accelerate billing cycles from 30 days to some shorter period to reduce exposure to pre-bankruptcy petition debt and other possible nonpayment; and bill in advance for usage-based services currently billed in arrears, based on average usage over a sample period, perhaps phasing in the first ad