SB 426

This bill requires a telecommunications provider that is an incumbent local

exchange carrier (ILEC) under federal law to comply with requirements regarding

the availability of basic voice service. Under current law, until April 30, 2013, an

ILEC was required to make basic voice service available to all residential customers

within the local exchange area in which the telecommunications provider operated

as an ILEC, and allowed an ILEC to satisfy that requirement through an affiliate or

through the use of any available technology or mode. However, an ILEC was allowed

to apply to the Public Service Commission for a waiver from compliance with that

requirement and the PSC was required to grant the waiver if certain requirements

were satisfied. Also, if the PSC failed to act on the application within specified

deadlines, the waiver was considered granted by operation of law. Current law

specifies a sunset date of April 30, 2013, on which all of the foregoing no longer apply.

This bill eliminates that sunset date. As a result, under the bill, except as

described as follows, the foregoing requirements apply to an ILEC. The bill also

makes the following changes to those requirements. First, instead of requiring an

ILEC to make basic voice service available to residential customers within a local

exchange area, the bill requires an ILEC to make such service effectively available

to such customers. Second, the bill eliminates the PSC's authority to grant waivers,

but exempts from the bill's requirements an ILEC that was granted a waiver before

that sunset date, or for whom a waiver was considered granted by operation of law

before that sunset date. Finally, the bill allows the PSC to investigate whether an

ILEC has complied with the bill's requirements and allows the PSC to order an ILEC

to comply through the use of any technology or mode that the PSC determines is

necessary to ensure that basic voice service is effectively available to all residential

customers in a local exchange area.