The District of Columbia's Public Service Commission has formally approved a new price cap plan for Verizon Washington, D.C, Inc. As part of an original settlement agreement between Verizon and the Office of People's Counsel, the plan would have been amended to freeze rate increases for basic residential phone service until Dec. 1, 2009, and mandate billing credits for service outages lasting 24 hours or longer. While the commission found many of the original plan's provisions, such as classifying bundled services as "competitive" and limiting the tariff review process, to be reasonable, regulators said the freeze on basic residential rates should continue for two years, while "Economy II" service rates should remain unchanged until further commission directive. In addition, annual price increases for basic residential and business services will be limited to the lesser of 10% or $1, and rate hikes in the discretionary services basket will now be capped at 15% annually. The plan also classifies "Business Message Rate - PBX Trunk" service in the competitive services basket and "Business Message Rate, Individual Line and Additional Line" and "Message Unit" services in the basic business services basket.
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