FCC to Tackle Bill Shock, Consider Overage Warnings - eWeek

The Federal Communications Commission is taking its next set of steps to prevent U.S. consumers from experiencing "bill shock"?unexpected charges on their mobile phone statements due to hidden costs or unclear billing practices.

According to the New York Times, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Oct. 14 will propose to the five-member commission that wireless carriers and mobile Internet companies be required to alert consumers when they're about to incur charges above the set amount of their monthly plans.

"The data is clear that there is a significant consumer issue," Genachowski said.

A study commissioned by the FCC regarding consumers' feelings about their wireless service bills found Americans to be generally confused about wireless billing. Approximately 30 million Americans reported experiencing sudden one-time increases to their bills, though they hadn't made changes to their calling or texting plans.

In May, Joel Gurin, chief of the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, said the FCC has fielded hundreds of complaints about bill shock and his team was questioning carriers about the practice and costs of alerting consumers to overages. Requiring such a warning would not be unprecedented, as carriers in the European Union are required to warn customers when they're close to their data limit or about incur roaming charges.

"The solution is a 21st-century solution," Genachowski said, according to the Times.

Still, mobile phone companies are less keen to take up the practice, even while asserting that customers have the right to clear information regarding the wireless usage. In a filing with the FCC, Verizon pointed out that many wireless carriers helpfully offer online tools that allow customers to monitor their usage.

Such online tools, however, have not been enough to prevent bill shock. The FCC got involved in the issue, the Time reports, after The Boston Globe ran a story about a Massachusetts man who racked up an $18,000 bill after an offer of free data downloads expired.

The FCC, in its proposal Oct. 14, will ask that wireless companies make their billing practices easier to understand and more clearly spell out what the limits of a contract are and what fees apply. "Most people still don't know what a megabyte is," Genachowski said, according to the Times. "So it's hard to expect them to know when they have reached their limits."

According to the Times, the chairman's office rarely puts forth proposals that aren't likely to receive the support of the majority of the board.

View the original article here

Gulf oil spill: White House blocked and put spin on scientists' warnings - The Guardian

BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig seen burning in April. A report commissioned by Barack Obama has revealed that the White House office of management and budget blocked scientists seeking permission to show worst case scenario models two weeks after the explosion. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

The White House blocked government scientists from warning the American public of the potential environmental disaster caused by BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico, a report released by the national commission investigating the oil spill said yesterday.

The report, produced by a panel appointed by Barack Obama to investigate the spill, said that about two weeks after the BP rig exploded scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) asked the White House for permission to release their models showing their worst case scenarios for the spill.

The White House office of management and budget, which is a traditional clearing house for decisions, turned down the request, the report said, quoting interviews with administration officials.

The report, one of four released today by the commission, provides the most compelling evidence to date of direct attempts by the White House to spin the BP oil spill disaster.

The White House disputed the commission's findings. "Senior government officials were clear with the public what the worst-case flow rate could be," the acting director of the OMB, Jeffrey Zients and the NOAA adminstrator, Jane Lubchenco, said in a statement.

The commission report does not explore why the White House sought to block the worst-case scenarios for the spill.

The report amplifies scathing criticism last week by the commission's co-chairs, Bob Graham and William Reilly, of the Obama administration's handling of the disaster.

It goes on to catalogue other lapses by the administration, including repeated underestimates of the size of the spill, and downplaying the environmental damage after the BP well was capped.

The report found particular fault with the White House energy adviser, Carol Browner, who appeared on television on 4 August and said: "The vast majority of oil was gone."

It said Browner was overstating the findings of a NOAA analysis of the fate of the oil.

"By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem," the report said.

The documents for the first time put the White House at the centre of the long running dispute between the administration and independent scientists about how much oil was discharged into the Gulf, and how much remains in the water.

At first, BP claimed the well was leaking 1,000 barrels a day. By early May, the administration had revised its estimate upwards to 5,000 barrels a day, but based its assessment on the work of a single NOAA scientist using "overly casual" analysis of satellite images of oil on the surface of the ocean.

The administration clung to that estimate – which turned out to be 12 times lower than the actual spill size – despite known inaccuracies in the scientists' work, the report said.

It went on: "Loss of the public trust during a disaster is not an incidental public relations problem."

View the original article here