By Lexi McCrillis
On February 26, 2026, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued an order instituting Rulemaking 26-02-017 to consider whether to apply General Order 133-E (GO 133-E) service quality standards to wireless carriers. This follows a prior decision determining that wireless outage frequency and duration have increased significantly in recent years.
GO 133-E, adopted on September 18, 2025, developed requirements for landline telephones and Voice over Internet Protocol Providers (VoIP) services. GO 133-E requires revising service restoration standards within a timely manner, ensuring customer credits for prolonged outages, and adding reporting requirements for provider performance data. Stemming from D.25-09-031, issued on September 26, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) found that service restoration for wireless voice services, outages, outage duration, and degree of outages experienced have increased over time. Notably, the data indicated that the number of wireless outages more than 96 hours increased from 31 to 254 in the span of three years. Due to this, the CPUC made efforts to obtain more information to determine appropriate measures, including obtaining more data regarding wireless outages from common providers including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
The Public Utilities Code section 2896(c) requires telephone corporations to provide customer service that conforms with reasonable statewide service quality standards. However, wireless carriers are regulated differently under federal law. For example, United States Code section 322(c)(3) bars states from regulating wireless rates or the wireless market, but states remain permitted to regulate “other terms and conditions” of wireless service, including service quality. This was reaffirmed in the California Court of Appeal decision Pacific Bell Wireless (Cingular) v. CPCU, 140 Cal.4th 718 (2005), resolving preemption concerns.
The CPUC invites comments on the scope of this rulemaking and orders AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to submit several documents for review including materials used to create claimed financial figures and cost estimates, existing customer service standards, estimated price increases for implementing this rulemaking and GO 133-E, among other data.
Wireless communications is a relied upon service for a substantial number of Californians and increasing outages may raise public safety concerns that this Rulemaking attempts to combat. The CPUC Commissioner, Darcie L. Houck, said “[t]hese measures will further the CPUC’s goal of ensuring customers receive safe and reliable communication services.” Comments on this Order Instituting Rulemaking (OIR) is set to take place on March 26, 2026.