It’s a Question of Wires Getting Crossed

Question: I was interested in your recent column about how Pacific Bell and GTE have kindly “given” all of us the telephone wiring in our homes and how, if anything goes wrong with it in the future, it’ll cost us an arm and a leg to get either company to fix it. (Either that or we can pay a per-month shakedown to have it taken care of.)

So, OK. What about me ? I don’t own the apartment where I live--I only rent my place. Does this mean that the landlord owns all the telephone wires in the place, but that I have to pay 50 cents a month (for Pacific, or 95 cents for GTE) to repair his lines? What sort of sense does that make? Is he expected to deduct 50 cents, or 95 cents, a month from my rent?

And what happens when the phones go out and knock five, six or seven apartments out of service, but the trouble turns out to be in just one of them? Or maybe it’s in an apartment on an entirely different floor?--N.S.

Answer: This deregulation order by the Federal Communications Commission--one of a whole series that began several years ago--is going over with the public like a bout of nonstop hiccups at a formal wedding.

First, we were given the choice of buying or continuing to rent our phones from the phone company (or of buying an over-the-counter model from Phones R Us or some similar retailer). Then the knotty problem of choosing our own long-distance carrier was dumped in our lap. Now, before Jan. 1, we have to decide whether we want to pay 50 cents a month (Pacific Bell) or 95 cents a month (General Telephone) to make sure that any trouble with our inside telephone wires is taken care of by the respective telephone company, or whether we want to wing it, cross our fingers and cope with any repair problems ourselves when, and if, they occur. Enough.

Yours was one of several letters addressing the same question: Who does the wiring belong to under a landlord-tenant arrangement? And the two telephone companies themselves concede it’s a good question.

As Tom Leweck, public affairs director for GTE, sees it: “We generally take the position that in an apartment, the telephone wiring is very much like cable television. We’re responsible for the wiring into the building and the wiring between apartments.

“Most of the wiring problems that do pop up, though,” Leweck continues, “involve jacks that for one reason or another, go bad--somebody kicks them, or the cat gets to them or something like that--and that’s clearly the tenant’s responsibility.

Won’t Affect Another

“If several phones in the same building all went out of service at the same time, it would almost surely be a cable problem, and that’s our baby. Realistically, though, there’s nothing anyone could do to his phone that would affect service to someone else’s phone. So, it just wouldn’t be possible--as this reader suggests--to have a phone go out on one floor and cause trouble for someone on another floor.”

Pacific Bell’s spokeswoman, Charlene Baldwin, admits there are fuzzy and gray areas in the whole thing. For instance: The wiring to the apartment building is OK, but trouble develops, for instance, in the basement--or some other common area over which no tenant has responsibility. Technically, a case could be made that the phone company is off the hook because the wiring to the building is all right. But is it a legitimate technicality?

If not the phone company, then who should be responsible for the cost of repairing it? The landlord, because the trouble isn’t in any specific apartment? Or should all tenants share the cost? “We’ve started having meetings with the Public Utilities Commission as well as various consumer and landlord-tenant groups in Northern California,” Baldwin continues, “but I’ll have to admit that, so far, a lot more questions than answers have popped up. We’re going to have more such meetings around the state, and we think, possibly, that eventually the standard landlord-tenant contract needs to be rewritten to cover this business of inside wiring and who’s responsible for what.”

For the moment, then, hold your breath and hope that if something does happen to your phone, it’s because someone has been digging in the street and has hit a cable 300 yards away from your own apartment.

Q: In May, 1984, I purchased a 25-inch Sylvania television set at a cost of $635.95. It carried a two-year guarantee through NAP Consumer Electronics Corp. In August, 1986, they offered a “Priority Service Protection Plan” for three more years. I purchased it.

In October, 1986, my set developed a blurry picture. I called the company (NAP Consumer Electronics), and they refered me to a local TV repair shop. A TV repairman picked up my set, repaired it and returned it two weeks later with a bill for $148.90, stating that my Priority Service Protection Plan covered only the cost of a new picture tube--nothing else. No repair labor, no repair parts, no pickup or delivery. In other words, I have been sold a service protection plan that is worthless. I wrote to NAP Consumer Electronics Corp. twice in the last six weeks and have yet to receive an answer.--A.O’H.

A: Ron Lane of NAP Consumer Electronics Corp.’s consumer-affairs department in Jefferson City, Tenn., tells us that he has no record of having received any correspondence from you but that it may have gone to the wrong office. The company, a division of North American Philips Co. has three offices in three different cities in Tennessee. The trouble with this explanation, Lane concedes, is that the Jefferson City address to which you wrote is, sure enough, the correct one for all consumer queries.

Another explanation is that “actually, we’ve got two or three plans, and one of them does cover only the replacement of the picture tube. And the letter clearly states that other parts and labor are the buyer’s responsibility.”

Unfortunately, this explanation breaks down too, because the letter you received in August, 1986, after you had bought the Priority Service Protection Plan (a copy of which you sent me), mentions no such restrictions. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite impression is given in this paragraph: “. . . (this) means that you can sit back and continue to enjoy hours upon hours of entertainment without ever having to pay an unexpected service bill. Plus, should your product ever require service, you know that all work will be performed by a highly skilled, factory authorized technician.”

The only limitation, in fact, is in the phrase: “You will need to present your validated Priority Service Protection plan to your servicer, so please file this document in a safe place once you have affixed your official validation stamp.” Which, of course, you did.

Left without explanation, however, is the meaning of the seal affixed to your letter: “Valid for 5 Yr CRT Only.” No definition of CRT is given in the letter you received. According to Lane, however, CRT actually means “Cathode Ray Tube.”

Covers Tube Only

And this, of course, also suggests that what you actually bought was a policy covering replacement of the tube only--despite the definite impression of complete, carefree service given by the rest of the letter.

Either you received the wrong letter--one intended for a customer buying a more expensive, full-service policy--or, Lane says, “quite possibly paid for something you shouldn’t have.”

At any rate, Lane assures us that he will call you immediately, get from you a copy of the correspondence and the service receipt and “work it out.”

In our subsequent conversation, you assured me that Lane had, indeed, been in touch with you and that the wheels are moving.