The California Public Utilities Commission has proposed a surcharge on text messaging to help cover its growing budget for programs that help make phone service accessible to the poor.<\/b>
\nA federal regulatory ruling Wednesday aimed at protecting consumers from text-messaging spam may also help California mobile phone users avoid a proposed state texting tax.
The California Public Utilities Commission has proposed a surcharge on text messaging to help cover its growing budget for programs that help make phone service accessible to the poor, with a vote scheduled for Jan. 10. But the proposal \u2014 first reported Tuesday by the (San Jose) Mercury News \u2014 has drawn fast and fierce criticism from opponents.
The wireless industry, business groups and other critics argued California can\u2019t tax text messages unless federal regulators allow state regulators to treat text messaging as a telecommunications service.
On Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission in a 3-1 decision declared wireless Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) are \u201cinformation services\u201d similar to email under the Communications Act \u2014 and not a telecommunications service.
The FCC\u2019s decision also denied requests from mass-texting companies that have complained wireless providers are thwarting their ability to reach consumers via texts. Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Michael O\u2019Rielly and Brendan Carr were in favor, with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel opposed.
\u201cWe commend Chairman Pai and the FCC for protecting consumers from an avalanche of messaging spam and allowing them to continue to benefit from a flourishing and competitive messaging ecosystem,\u201d said Scott Bergmann, CTIA\u2019s senior vice president for regulatory affairs.
The vote could have an impact on California\u2019s proposal to tax text messages. The Public Utilities Commission had no immediate response Wednesday, but text tax critics considered the FCC decision a victory.
\u201cWe hope that the CPUC recognizes that taxing text messages is bad for consumers,\u201d said Jamie Hastings, senior vice president of external and state affairs for CTIA, which represents the U. S. wireless communications industry, including AT&T Mobility, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
\u201cConsumers exchanged 1.77 trillion messages in 2017, making text messages one of the most common and effective means of communication for Americans,\u201d Hastings said. \u201cTaxing this service would burden those who rely on and use this service each and every day.\u201d
Supporters of the surcharge, including the Oakland-based Greenlining Institute, a think-tank that promotes social equity for communities of color, agreed the FCC ruling is a setback, but not necessarily fatal.
\u201cI\u2019d agree the FCC decision complicates things,\u201d said Paul Goodman, the institute\u2019s director of telecommunications and technology policy. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it eliminates the PUC\u2019s ability to impose that.\u201d
Critics including business groups like the Bay Area Council and Silicon Valley Leadership Group said in a Dec. 5 letter to the commission that it could not impose the text tax \u201cwithout an explicit federal classification of text messaging as a telecommunications service.\u201d
But supporters of the texting surcharge noted the commission proposal makes several other arguments for its authority to impose it.
\u201cNothing the FCC has done prevents leadership in this area,\u201d said Mindy Spatt, spokeswoman for The Utility Reform Network, a consumer group in favor of the texting surcharge.
Supporters argued that as traditional telephone service gives way to new technologies like texting, revenues for promoting \u201cuniversal service\u201d aren\u2019t keeping up and need to branch out into those areas. They noted the wireless providers don\u2019t need to pass the charges on to their customers.
The proposed surcharge would be part of the Universal Service Charge at the bottom of consumers\u2019 mobile phone bills, which pays for programs that help poor people afford telephone service and subsidize service in rural areas schools and hospitals.
Critics countered that charging for texting would put them at a disadvantage with other messaging services like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger that are rapidly gaining popularity and would not be required to pay the surcharge.<\/p>\n