To what extent has the regulatory world been influenced by our choice of jargon and terminology?
Our choice of words, our use of language is often geared toward influencing opinion. But to what extent have we seen regulators influenced by terminology that is non-neutral or even pejorative?
I was reading an article by Eric Fruits of the International Center for Law and Economics that drew my attention to this issue. “The Curious Case of the Missing Data Caps Investigation”, is a recent about the FCC’s lack of action on the use of “data caps.” The author notes that what the FCC calls “data caps” arenāt really caps at all. Professor Daniel Lyons, associate dean of academic affairs and a professor of law at Boston College Law School, notes:
the phrase ādata capsā is a misnomer. A cap implies a hard limit on the amount of data a customer may consume each month. Thatās not an accurate description of most UBP [usage based pricing] offers, which are perhaps better characterized as pay-as-you-go plans. Customers pay in advance for a certain amount of data, and if they exceed that amount, they can purchase an additional amount. In other words, customers on these plans have unlimited dataāthey just pay for what they consume, just as they do with most other goods in society.
Me? I have long prefered the term “usage tier” for that very reason. As I wrote in 2016, such tiers enable lower-priced options for consumers who donāt need (or donāt want to pay) for a higher priced unlimited plan. Usage tiers have proven to be very popular in mobile services.
The recent article demonstrates that neither consumers nor service providers want true data caps. “Not only are hard caps subjectively ‘bad’ for consumers, but they are also bad business, because they leave money on the table. Thereās no need to ban hard caps, because the market has already banned them. Consumers donāt want hard caps and providers donāt want to impose them.”
Over the years, jargon and terminology have changed in regulatory proceedings. Non-facility based service providers have found the term “reseller” to be a pejorative term. Back in the olden days, the resale and sharing of telecommunications services was a hard fought regulatory battle (you’re welcome). Even for small pieces of telecom facilities that were combined with other components and billions of dollars of infrastructure, service providers recognized that resale was resale. Resale was governed by wholesale regulations and tariffs approved by the CRTC or negotiated with the underlying carrier. To this day, the terms “reseller” and “wholesale-based” appear in official regulatory filings in a somewhat passive aggressive manner.
There are many other examples of jargon and terminology used in a manner to elicit negative feelings. Are early termination fees (ETF) a form of “junk fee”? Some argue that an ETF is a quid pro quo: the consumer pays a lower monthly price in exchange for a contractural promise to keep purchasing over a specified time period. The ETF is the cost of breaking that contract. While such fees are normal in mortgages, in insurance, hotel bookings and countless other industries, in telecommunications we have effectively eliminated the ETF.
The elimination of early termination fees was an effort to lower the cost for consumers to switch service providers prior to the end of a contract. Has there been any research to test the effectiveness of this regulatory measure or its impact on prices?
What other telecom terminology and jargon do you find being used in a not so neutral manner?