Online 
My Badges
Create The Good
Background
Name: AARP
Birthday: March 23
Location:
COLUMBUS, Ohio
United States
COLUMBUS, Ohio
United States
AARP lauds Ohio delegation for Medicare Fairness Act voteLandline Proposal Puts Seniors at Risk
Ohio’s seniors, like seniors elsewhere, rely on landline telephone service to connect with their family, doctors, emergency services and community.
According to the Division of Health Interview Statistics within the National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of adults age 65+ switching to become a wireless-only households was 0.9% in 2005 and just 3.3% in 2008. Stated another way, 96% of 65+ households still depend on traditional landline telephone service.
If proposed legislation to deregulate telephone service is enacted by the Ohio General Assembly, there will be a downward spiral in the quality of service that landline customers receive.
For example, the period of time telephone companies have to restore an out-of-service telephone line would increase from 24 hours to 72 hours (three days). This means Ohio’s elderly could be alone and without telephone service for several days with no way to call for help.
So much for peace of mind! Telephone companies would only be responsible to credit customers who engage in the formal complaint process at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, including showing up in Columbus for a hearing.
AARP believes reliable basic telephone service is too important to give telephone companies up to three days to restore outages. Join us in opposing these changes.
Learn more by visiting the Office of Ohio Consumers Counsel web site at www.pickocc.org/telecom/deregulation/index.shtml
There are no comments for this item.
journal Details
Added: Oct 30, 2009
Views: 43
Comments: 0
Bookmarks: 0
Views: 43
Comments: 0
Bookmarks: 0
Groups
No groups selected.
