CHAPTER 33
HB 387 - FINAL VERSION
6jan00.....2083h
2000 SESSION
HOUSE BILL 387
AN ACT relative to local telephone calling areas, access charges, and competitive telephone services.
SPONSORS: Rep. MacGillivray, Hills 21
COMMITTEE: Science, Technology and Energy
This bill establishes standards for the determination of local telephone calling areas and intrastate access charges by local telephone providers. This bill also authorizes the public utilities commission to require telephone utilities to provide information to the commission regarding competitive services and possible separation or divestiture.
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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.
Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]
Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
6jan00.....2083h
99-0822
03/01
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand
AN ACT relative to local telephone calling areas, access charges, and competitive telephone services.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
33:1 Findings.
I. The general court finds that significant benefits have been obtained by increasing the size of local telephone calling areas. The general court finds that, in general, it is desirable for municipalities that send most of their students to the same public school district to have at least most of those students' homes within each other's local calling areas. The general court therefore finds that the public utilities commission, if it continues to use a community of interest standard as a first step in determining whether to proceed with requests to add additional exchanges to a local calling area, should not reject requests for larger calling areas solely because the existing volume of calls between exchanges that would become local calls is small. If few calls are currently being made, the commission should consider the likely increase in number should such calls become local calls, especially where students attending the same public school would acquire the opportunity to make local calls to each other instead of toll calls. However, while the general court urges the commission not to reject requests solely on the basis of a low current number of calls, the general court finds that the commission should continue to require an affirmative vote from the requesting exchange before expanding a local calling area.
II.(a) The general court finds that it is desirable for intrastate access charges, which local telephone exchange carriers charge to long distance providers for telephone calls outside local calling areas, not to exceed interstate access charges. The general court supports the public utilities commission's efforts in recent years to reduce intrastate access charges to the approximate level of interstate access charges.
(b) The general court finds that since the reductions in interstate access charges by federal regulators have often been accompanied by increases in customer charges for basic monthly telephone service, and since similar reductions in intrastate access charges may require similar increases in customer charges for basic monthly telephone service, the public utilities commission may consider decreases in intrastate access charges even if customer charges for basic monthly telephone service would need to be increased.
(c) The general court finds that the public utilities commission, when setting intrastate access charges, should consider both the disadvantages to customers of intrastate access charges that exceed interstate access charges and the disadvantages to customers of increases in charges for basic monthly services.
III. The general court finds that it is desirable for intrastate access charges not to vary greatly among local exchange carriers. Competitive long distance providers are unlikely to adopt different rates in different areas to compensate for these differences, and are likely, instead, to set their rates at a level that results in low-access-charge areas continuing to subsidize high-access-charge areas. The general court finds that, for local exchange carrier telephone utilities with relatively high intrastate access charges, the public utilities commission should consider increasing basic monthly service charges in order to decrease intrastate access charges.
33:2 New Sections; Public Utilities; Equality of Rates; Local Telephone Calling Areas and Intrastate Access Charges, Competitive Telephone Services Information. Amend RSA 378 by inserting after section 17 the following new sections:
378:17-a Local Telephone Calling Areas and Intrastate Access Charges.
I. In this section, "local calling area" means the area which may be called from a telephone calling exchange without paying toll charges or access charges.
II. If the commission uses a community of interest standard to limit requests to add additional exchanges to a local calling area, the commission should not reject requests solely because few calls are currently being made between the exchanges that would become local calls if the request were granted. If few calls are currently being made, the commission should consider the likelihood of significant increases in the number of calls between the exchanges if the request is granted and these calls become local calls, especially where public school district boundaries indicate that this is likely to occur.
III.(a) The commission should, as soon as possible after each significant decrease of interstate access charges by the federal government, consider corresponding reductions in intrastate access charges, taking into account both the disadvantages to customers of intrastate access charges that exceed interstate access charges and the disadvantages to customers of increases in charges for basic services.
(b) The commission should consider reducing intrastate access charges and increasing basic monthly service charges for local exchange carrier telephone utilities that have both a higher intrastate access charge than the state median intrastate access charge and a lower basic monthly service charge than the state median basic monthly service charge for exchanges with similar numbers of telephones within the local calling area.
378:17-b Competitive Telephone Services Information.
I. The commission is authorized to require telephone utilities that are also providers of competitive telephone services within New Hampshire or outside of New Hampshire to provide information to the commission concerning potential separation or divestiture. The information shall include the costs and other adverse consequences of requiring the separation of these businesses into 2 separate subsidiaries or the divestiture of one or the other into a completely separate corporate entity. This information may be required of any telephone utility which is engaged in any competitive business and which is also engaged either in any non-competitive business, or in any competitive business in which it has a market share exceeding 80 percent.
II. The commission is authorized to require telephone utilities that are required to make services available to competitive resellers to provide information to the commission concerning potential separation or divestiture. The information shall include the costs and other adverse consequences of requiring the separation or divestiture of the competitive portion of their business which competes with the competitive resellers. It should be assumed that the separated or divested portion would then be removed from price regulation.
III. The commission may require information pursuant to this section from all telephone utilities, or from telephone utilities larger than a specified size with or without a representative sample of telephone utilities smaller than that size, at the commission's discretion.
IV. The commission shall not mandate separation or divestiture without legislative approval unless so required by federal law.
33:3 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.
(Approved: April 3, 2000)
(Effective Date: June 2, 2000)