Senate Bill sb0142c1
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Florida Senate - 2006 CS for SB 142
By the Committee on Communications and Public Utilities; and
Senators Fasano and Argenziano
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1 A bill to be entitled
2 An act relating to telecommunications; amending
3 s. 364.051, F.S., relating to price regulation;
4 allowing a telecommunications company to
5 publicly publish price lists for nonbasic
6 services; allowing 1 day's notice for price
7 changes to nonbasic services; deleting a
8 company's option to elect that its basic
9 services be treated as nonbasic services;
10 requiring a company to request that the Public
11 Service Commission lessen its service quality
12 regulation; providing criteria for granting a
13 petition to change regulatory treatment of
14 retail services; providing an effective date.
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16 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
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18 Section 1. Subsections (5), (6), and (7) of section
19 364.051, Florida Statutes, are amended to read:
20 364.051 Price regulation.--
21 (5) NONBASIC SERVICES.--Price regulation of nonbasic
22 services shall consist of the following:
23 (a) Each company subject to this section shall, at its
24 option, maintain tariffs with the commission or otherwise
25 publicly publish containing the terms, conditions, and rates
26 for each of its nonbasic services, and may set or change, on 1
27 day's 15 days' notice, the rate for each of its nonbasic
28 services, except that a price increase for any nonbasic
29 service category shall not exceed 6 percent within a 12-month
30 period until there is another provider providing local
31 telecommunications service in an exchange area at which time
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Florida Senate - 2006 CS for SB 142
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1 the price for any nonbasic service category may be increased
2 in an amount not to exceed 20 percent within a 12-month
3 period, and the rate shall be presumptively valid. However,
4 for purposes of this subsection, the prices of:
5 1. A voice-grade, flat-rate, multi-line business local
6 exchange service, including multiple individual lines, centrex
7 lines, private branch exchange trunks, and any associated
8 hunting services, that provides dial tone and local usage
9 necessary to place a call within a local exchange calling
10 area; and
11 2. Telecommunications services provided under contract
12 service arrangements to the SUNCOM Network, as defined in
13 chapter 282,
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15 shall be capped at the rates in effect on July 1, 1995, and
16 such rates shall not be increased prior to January 1, 2000;
17 provided, however, that a petition to increase such rates may
18 be filed pursuant to subsection (4) utilizing the standards
19 set forth therein. There shall be a flat-rate pricing option
20 for multi-line business local exchange service, and mandatory
21 measured service for multi-line business local exchange
22 service shall not be imposed. Nothing contained in this
23 section shall prevent the local exchange telecommunications
24 company from meeting offerings by any competitive provider of
25 the same, or functionally equivalent, nonbasic services in a
26 specific geographic market or to a specific customer by
27 deaveraging the price of any nonbasic service, packaging
28 nonbasic services together or with basic services, using
29 volume discounts and term discounts, and offering individual
30 contracts. However, the local exchange telecommunications
31 company shall not engage in any anticompetitive act or
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Florida Senate - 2006 CS for SB 142
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1 practice, nor unreasonably discriminate among similarly
2 situated customers.
3 (b) The commission shall have continuing regulatory
4 oversight of nonbasic services for purposes of ensuring
5 resolution of service complaints, preventing
6 cross-subsidization of nonbasic services with revenues from
7 basic services, and ensuring that all providers are treated
8 fairly in the telecommunications market. The cost standard
9 for determining cross-subsidization is whether the total
10 revenue from a nonbasic service is less than the total
11 long-run incremental cost of the service. Total long-run
12 incremental cost means service-specific volume and
13 nonvolume-sensitive costs.
14 (c) The price charged to a consumer for a nonbasic
15 service shall cover the direct costs of providing the service
16 and shall, to the extent a cost is not included in the direct
17 cost, include as an imputed cost the price charged by the
18 company to competitors for any monopoly component used by a
19 competitor in the provision of its same or functionally
20 equivalent service.
21 (6) After a local exchange telecommunications company
22 that has more than 1 million access lines in service has
23 reduced its intrastate switched network access rates to
24 parity, as defined in s. 364.164(5), the local exchange
25 telecommunications company's basic local telecommunications
26 service may, at the company's election, be subject to the same
27 regulatory treatment as its nonbasic services. The company's
28 retail service quality requirements that are not already equal
29 to the service quality requirements imposed upon the
30 competitive local exchange telecommunications companies shall
31 at the company's request to the commission thereafter be no
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Florida Senate - 2006 CS for SB 142
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1 greater than those imposed upon competitive local exchange
2 telecommunications companies unless the commission, within 120
3 days after the company's request election, determines
4 otherwise. In such event, the commission may grant some
5 reductions in service quality requirements in some or all of
6 the company's local calling areas. The commission may not
7 impose retail service quality requirements on competitive
8 local exchange telecommunications companies greater than those
9 existing on January 1, 2003.
10 (7) After If a local exchange telecommunications
11 company that has more than 1 million access lines in service
12 has reduced its intrastate switched network access rates to
13 parity, as defined in s. 364.164(5) elects, pursuant to
14 subsection (6), to subject its retail basic local
15 telecommunications services to the same regulatory treatment
16 as its nonbasic services, the local exchange
17 telecommunications company may petition the commission for
18 regulatory treatment of its retail services at a level no
19 greater than that imposed by the commission upon competitive
20 local exchange telecommunications companies. The local
21 exchange telecommunications company shall:
22 (a) Show that granting the petition is in the public
23 interest;
24 (b) Demonstrate that the competition faced by the
25 company is sufficient and sustainable to allow such
26 competition to supplant regulation by the commission; and
27 (c)(b) Reduce its intrastate switched network access
28 rates to its local reciprocal interconnection rate upon the
29 grant of the petition.
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1 The commission shall act upon such a petition within 9 months
2 after its filing with the commission. In making its
3 determination to either grant or deny the petition, the
4 commission shall determine the extent to which the level of
5 competition faced by the local exchange telecommunications
6 company permits and will continue to permit the company to
7 have its retail services regulated no differently than the
8 competitive local exchange telecommunications companies are
9 then being regulated. The commission may not increase the
10 level of regulation for competitive local exchange
11 telecommunications companies to a level greater than that
12 which exists on the date the local exchange telecommunications
13 company files its petition.
14 Section 2. This act shall take effect upon becoming a
15 law.
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Florida Senate - 2006 CS for SB 142
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1 STATEMENT OF SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES CONTAINED IN
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR
2 SB 142
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4 The committee substitute:
5 -Deletes the provision that allows an incumbent
telecommunications company to elect to have its basic services
6 treated as nonbasic.
7 -Requires a company to request from the commission to have its
service quality requirements treated the same as competitive
8 local exchange companies.
9 -Allows the company to petition the commission after parity is
reached, for lesser regulatory treatment of its retail
10 services. In its petition, it must show and the commission
must find that:
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-the change would be in the public interest.
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-the level of competition has been demonstrated to be
13 sufficient and sustainable to allow the commission's
regulation to be supplanted by competitive forces.
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-The company has reduced its intrastate switched network
15 access rates to its local reciprocal interconnection rate
upon grant of the petition.
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-Allows the incumbent telecommunications companies to change
17 its prices for its nonbasic services on one day's notice and
to publicly publish pricelists rather than file tariffs.
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