Industrial Communications Systems, Inc. v. Public Utilities Commission

In May 1974, pursuant to Public Utilities Code sections 489 and 491, 1 General Telephone Company of California (General Telephone) filed with the Public Utilities Commission (Commission) certain changes in its tariffs for mobile telephone service. Rates were proposed for one-way radio-paging service in the Redlands/San Bernardino area. General Telephone previously had not offered that service in the area. 2

Involved here is a one-way radio-paging technique that permits a customer in transit to be contacted by someone at a stationary telephone. The stationary individual dials into the paging terminal an assigned, four-digit code number. A signal is transmitted by radio to the transiting person, who receives it as a tone emitted from a portable receiver. Two-way mobile service, which General Telephone already was providing in the area, also uses radio transmissions. It permits two-way voice communication rather than the simpler, one-way tone paging involved in General Telephone’s proposed tariff modifications here.

Protests against the proposed modifications were filed with the Commission by two radiotelephone utilities (RTUs). 3 They provided *576 similar service in the…