LEWISTON — Time Warner Cable has provided digital phone service in Maine since 2003 and has more than 100,000 phone customers, but Time Warner is not regulated as a telephone company.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday continued to take steps toward determining whether it should be.

Time Warner Cable and Comcast, another cable company that provides digital telephone service in Maine, both oppose the move. Maine’s public advocate and regulated telephone companies support it.

The question of how to regulate cable companies that offer phone services has lingered before state and federal officials for years. The Federal Communications Commission has had an open case on the issue since 2004.

The technology used by cable companies to provide digital phone service to customers is different from that used by traditional phone companies, complicating the issue for utilities regulators.

On Tuesday, PUC commissioners considered a report from their staff asserting that state regulators are not preempted by federal law and could legally move forward with applying telecommunications regulations on cable-provided telephone services. But Commissioner Jack Cashman said he’d like staff to do more work before a ruling.

“There is a lingering issue about the federal definition of the telecommunications act of what constitutes a telephone service or what constitutes an information service, and that is not properly addressed in the hearing examiner’s report,” Cashman said.

Cable companies say they provide an information service, similar to broadband Internet, which is unregulated.

Richard Davies, Maine’s public advocate, disagrees.

“A telephone call is a telephone call is a telephone call,” he said. “Consumers, I would think, would want to have companies providing similar services be treated in similar ways. We’ve certainly heard some complaints from folks who have used these services from companies who up to this point have not been regulated by the Maine commission, indicating that they didn’t think they were being treated as they ought to be.”

But no matter what the commission decides, consumers aren’t likely to notice much of a difference in their service, Davies said.

“There’s not going to be a very dramatic change,” he said, adding that the regulations would require more comprehensive reporting from the cable companies about the telephone and related customer services they provide.

Cable companies providing telephone services have lobbied heavily at the state and federal levels to avoid the added regulation.

“Regulation does cost them some money, though it’s a relatively small portion of their revenues and their profits,” Davies said.

According to Time Warner’s testimony provided to the Maine PUC, the company does not believe it provides a telephone service as described by Maine law and even if it did, federal law preempts the state from regulating it.

Maine regulators are awaiting a further report from staff before moving forward with a decision on the issue.

“Wherever we go, there’s a likelihood of appeal and we want to make sure we’ve done a comprehensive job in laying out the issues,” Commissioner Vendean Vafiades said.

In a separate decision made last week, the Maine PUC dismissed a request from Time Warner to terminate what’s called the “rural exemption” in federal law that is designed to protect small, rural telephone companies from being driven out of business by larger telephone companies.

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