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Utah Administrative Code (Current through November 1, 2019) |
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R746. Public Service Commission, Administration |
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R746-356. Intrastate (IntraLATA) Equal Access To Toll Calling Services By Telecommunications Carriers |
R746-356. Intrastate (IntraLATA) Equal Access To Toll Calling Services By Telecommunications Carriers
| R746-356-1. Purpose and Authority |
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A. Purpose -- 1. These rules establish procedures and methods by which all Commission certified local exchange carrier telecommunications corporations (LECs) will provide and maintain equal access, and customer dialing parity, to intrastate (intraLATA) toll services when requested by one or more Commission or Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certified telecommunications corporations or common carriers. 2. The costs of the equal access implementation and continuing service shall be fairly and reasonably distributed based on the future toll service market share achieved by the LEC and all certified telecommunications carriers requesting equal access service. 3. The provisioning of interLATA interstate toll services by a subsidiary, or an affiliate, of a LEC will be considered to be the same as those services being provided by the LEC itself for implementation of intrastate equal access. B. Authority -- 1. Section 54-8b-2.2(3) requires that the Commission establish these rules. 2. Title 47 U.S.C. Section 271(e)(2)requires implementation of intraLATA equal access for Bell Operating Company interLATA service offerings. 3. Title 47 U.S.C. Section 251 (b)(3), requires all LECs to provide intraLATA equal access when requested by a commission or FCC certified telecommunications corporation or common carrier, or when the LEC commences providing in-region or interstate interLATA toll service to its customers, with some exceptions as defined in 47 U.S.C. Section 251(f)(2). |
| R746-356-2. Definitions |
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For purposes of these rules, the following terms shall bear the associated meanings. All other terms are as defined in Section 54-8b. A. "Bona Fide Request" -- A written request submitted by a telecommunications corporation or common carrier certified by the Commission or the FCC for intraLATA or intraLATA equal access service in an exchange or exchanges of a LEC. B. "CCS" -- Committee of Consumer Services. C. "Division" -- Division of Public Utilities. D. "Equal Access" -- Dialing arrangements and other service characteristics provided by a LEC to other carriers that are equivalent in type and quality to that provided by the LEC, or designated contract carrier, for its provision of intraLATA toll service. E. "Presubscription" -- A process that allows customers to preselect the carrier that has equal access services for providing toll calls through the use of 1+ or 0+ without dialing a multi-digit access code. F. "Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier"(PIC) -- The certified telecommunications carrier a customer selects to provide 1+ or 0+ toll service, without the use of access codes, following equal access presubscription implementation. G. "2-PIC" -- The equal access presubscription option that affords customers the opportunity to select one certified telecommunications carrier for all interLATA 1+ or 0+ toll calls and, at the customer's option, to select another certified telecommunications carrier for all intraLATA 1+ or 0+ toll calls. |
| R746-356-3. Equal Access Implementation |
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A. Implementation -- LECs shall proceed to implement intraLATA equal access, using the 2-PIC method, in accordance with the following criteria: 1. Any LEC that has an equal access implementation plan approved by the Commission shall comply with and maintain equal access in accordance with its approved plan as amended or modified withCommission approval. 2. Any LEC that does not have an equal access implementation plan approved by the Commission will respond to a bona fide request, or on its own initiative, by filing an implementation plan with the Commission within 30 days. a. The target date for implementation shall be no later than seven months from the date of receipt of the bona fide request. b. Copies of the plan shall be mailed to the requesting telecommunications carrier, all other carriers subscribing to the LEC's interLATA equal access service, the Commission, and the Division. 3. A LEC can request a temporary waiver of the requirement to implement intraLATA equal access for one or more of its exchange areas, when it can prove that it does not have the technical or economic abilities to provide intraLATA equal access service. a. The Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, may grant a waiver upon a showing of a lack of technical or economic ability. b. When a LEC receives a waiver it shall implement interLATA and IntraLATA equal access by the date established in the Commission waiver. B. Approval of Equal Access Plans -- The Commission will assign each LEC equal access plan a docket number and issue a notice of the proceeding to all parties on its telecommunications list. 1. The Commission shall approve each plan within 45 days of the filed date, unless hearings are required to approve the implementation plan. 2. The plan target date(s) will be automatically extended by the number of days in excess of 45 required to finally approve a plan. C. Exemption of Toll Services -- A LEC shall continue to provide retail toll services as a carrier of last resort for its own certified territory, or as a PIC for its own certified territory, until an order of exemption is issued by the Commission. D. Continued Services -- LECs will continue to provide services for customer dialed number protocols 0-, Nll, 411,611, 911, and 976. These numbers are not equal access and call routing will continue to be processed unchanged by the LEC following the implementation of intraLATA equal access. Calls using customer dialed protocols, such as 500, 700, 800, 900, 10356, and 101356X, are not subject to presubscription and they will continue to be routed to the appropriate non-equal access carrier. E. Routing Interface Signaling -- All carriers shall establish uniform end-to-end message routing interface signaling that includes at least the carrier identification code (CIC), originating line or trunk telephone number, and terminating line or trunk telephone number. This requirement is to permit direct billing to the responsible carrier(s) for use of the switched access network elements provided by other carriers. |
| R746-356-4. Equal Access Implementation Plans |
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A. Criteria -- An intraLATA equal access implementation plan filed with the Commission, with a copy to the Division, shall include at least the following: 1. the planned individual central office or exchange cutover dates; 2. a schedule of any planned hardware and software upgrades required; 3. estimated investments and expenses for the planned upgrades; 4. estimated internal training expenses; 5. estimated cutover expenses; 6. estimated administrative expenses for preparing and filing tariffs or price lists; 7. estimated order processing expenses; 8. estimated customer notification and education expenses; 9. the computations of its estimated proposed equal access recovery charges; and 10. a copy of the work papers used to calculate the information required by R746-356-4(A)(3) through (9). B. Service of Plans -- Copies of the plan shall be served on the Division, CCS, and all telecommunications carriers that then subscribe to interLATA equal access from the LEC. C. Status Reports -- In the Commission approval of a plan, the Commission shall establish the LEC's reporting requirements for reporting implementation progress, with a final report filed after implementation. |
| R746-356-5. Customer Education, Notification, and Presubscription Contact Procedure |
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A. Customer Information -- Equal access customer instructional materials, forms, and notification letters developed by a LEC, shall be competitively neutral and unbiased as to the presubscription process. They shall clearly state the available PICs and a toll free contact number for each PIC. The proposed text of the first mailing letter shall be filed with the Commission and the Division at least 60 days prior to equal access implementation. B. Customer Notification -- Customer notification of the initial availability of intraLATA equal access will be provided as follows: 1. For exchanges in which interLATA equal access balloting is required, the ballot information shall be expanded to provide customer instructions that will allow the customer to presubscribe to both an interLATA and an intraLATA PIC, including the LEC. 2. For exchanges in which interLATA equal access has previously been provided, the balloting procedure will not be required. The LEC will provide notification of the intraLATA equal access implementation, and request that the customers preselect their PIC by letter required by R746-356-5(A). The letter will be sent to all LEC customers by 1st Class Mail no earlier than 45 days and no later than 15 days prior to the scheduled implementation date for each exchange. 3. Customers applying for local exchange service after the initial equal access notification mailing(s), but before implementation of equal access, shall receive a copy of the notification letter from the LEC. 4. Each PIC will be responsible for providing the LEC(s) with a current toll free number(s) to be included in the initial customer equal access notification letter. 5. The LEC will not be required to modify the customer notification letter seven days prior to the first mailing for the purpose of including another PIC that did not file a bona fide request in time for the letter preparation. C. Subsequent Customer Notification -- Subsequent to the equal access implementation of each exchange. The following procedures shall apply to all customer contacts and requests: 1. Customers applying for new local exchange service from the LEC shall be informed of the presubscription process and their choice of available PICs from a list that is referred to by the service representative in a rotational or random manner. This list must be constructed so that a LEC, and any of its subsidiaries, or affiliates, are not listed more than once, nor mentioned or written adjacent to one another. When a LEC and its subsidiary, or affiliate, have very similar names, the customer must be specifically advised as to the relationship between the entities. 2. Each new customer shall be required to select both an interLATA PIC and an intraLATA PIC. A customer who does not select a PIC(s) shall be informed that they will not be presubscribed to any toll provider, and will be required to utilize access codes when placing toll calls, until that customer selects a PIC. 3. When a customer requests more information about a specific PIC, other than the LEC, the LEC representative shall refer the caller to the PIC. 4. When a customer requests or advises the LEC representative of an address change, with or without a number change, the LEC shall assume that the existing PICs will not change for the new address, unless the customer voluntarily directs the LEC to do otherwise. 5. When a customer reports trouble in placing intraLATA toll calls, the LEC representative shall first determine whether the customer is presubscribed to a PIC. If so, the report will be handled as a service complaint pursuant to the procedure in effect between the LEC and the PIC. If the customer is not presubscribed, the customer will be asked to select a PIC in the manner of a new customer, per R746-356-5(C)(1). 6. LEC representatives may market their company's intraLATA service when handling "general service" calls with customers. A general service call is a call to the LEC requesting general information about the LEC's services, the establishment or removal of the LEC's services, billing inquiries, or calls relating to any other aspect of the services then provided to the customer by the LEC. General service calls do not include calls requesting a specific PIC change, address change, or telephone number change from existing customers. |
| R746-356-6. Presubscription Selection Procedures |
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A. Initial and Subsequent Orders -- The initial and subsequent orders for presubscribed PIC selections of customers shall be placed with a LEC by the customers or carriers, and confirmed pursuant to any FCC requirements and R746-349-3, Filing Requirements. B. Multiple PIC Change Orders -- When a LEC receives multiple PIC change orders for the same customer, the LEC shall process and implement the PIC change order with the latest date. C. Authorized Selections -- PIC presubscription selections shall only be authorized and valid when made by the "account holder" as defined in R746-240-2(A). D. Payphone and Shared Tenent Services -- IntraLATA PIC presubscription shall be available to public and semi-public pay phone services and to Shared Tenant Services (STS). When the LEC receives differing PIC selection directions from a pay phone service or a STS provider and a premises owner, or a legally authorized representative of the premises owner, the LEC will assign the PIC selection of the owner. E. Automatic PIC Assignment -- During the initial intraLATA equal access implementation of each exchange or central office, the existing customers that do not provide a PIC selection to the LEC, or to an equal access requesting carrier, will automatically receive the equal access PIC of the LEC serving the customer. |
| R746-356-7. Presubscription Charges |
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A. Single PIC Selection Charge -- The LEC will establish an intraLATA equal access presubscription charge for new service PIC selections, or PIC selection changes. This charge will initially be the same as the LEC's interLATA charge. This charge will be subject to change and approval of the Commission. This intraLATA charge will apply when the customer is establishing or changing only the intraLATA PIC presubscription. B. Multiple PIC Selection Charge -- The LEC will establish another intraLATA equal access presubscription charge that will apply when a customer orders the simultaneous installation or change of presubscription of both the intraLATA and interLATA PICs. Initially, the IntraLATA PIC charge applied when there is an order for both intraLATA and InterLATA PICs will be one-half of the intraLATA PIC charge pursuant to R746-356-7(A). This charge will be subject to change and approval of the Commission. C. Waiver -- 1. During the initial equal access implementation for each exchange, the intraLATA presubscription charge shall not be imposed on the customers for their initial PIC selection. 2. Customers will be allowed to make one intraLATA PIC selection change within a four month period following implementation date of each exchange or central office without being billed the intraLATA presubscription PIC charge. 3. The PIC charge shall be imposed for any subsequent intraLATA PIC changes, or after the four-month period ,whichever occurs first. 4. If customers change their interLATA PIC at the same time they initially select an intraLATA PIC, the customer shall be billed only the interLATA PIC change charge. D. New Customer Waiver -- New customers receiving service from a LEC, who do not initially select a presubscribed intraLATA PIC, may select a presubscribed interLATA during the first four-months of service without incurring the intraLATA PIC charge. |
| R746-356-8. Equal Access Implementation Cost Recovery Procedure |
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A. Recovery of Waived PIC Charges -- The LEC shall bill each equal access telecommunications carrier for the presubscription PIC charges waived by R746-356-7(C) or (D). B. Recovery of Expenses -- Any recovery of recurring and one-time expenses incurred for the provision of intraLATA equal access shall be through a separate, temporary equal access recovery charge (EARC) element in a LEC's switched access and toll tariffs or price lists. These expenses may include: 1. the incremental additional expenses related directly to the provision of hardware and software investments not required to upgrade the switching capabilities of each central office absent the provision of the intraLATA equal access; 2. expenses for the incremental additional training of customer contact personnel in the additional processing of intraLATA presubscription requests; 3. expenses related directly to the preparation, reproduction and mailing of the customer educational materials and equal access notifications; 4. expenses related directly to the preparation, reproduction and filings of the intraLATA equal access tariffs or price lists; 5. expenses for the Utah portion of the incremental additional software programming of the billing programs that would not be required absent the Utah intraLATA equal access; and 6. expenses for the Utah portion of the incremental additional software programming of the business office support systems that would not be required absent the Utah intraLATA equal access. C. Recovery Timing -- Expenses for intraLATA equal access implementation developed from items shown in R746-356-8(B)shall be subject to approval by the Commission. The EARC shall be assessed to estimated monthly intraLATA originating switched access minutes and monthly originating LEC toll minutes of use, over a three-year period for Qwest Corporation, and over a two-year period for all other LECs. D. True-Up -- 1. For each applicable year, the EARC will be trued-up and changed based on the actual incurred expenses, the actual originating intraLATA switched access minutes billed to each PIC, and the intraLATA toll minutes billed by the LEC. 2. The true-ups shall result in an annual payment by the LEC to each participating equal access carrier for excess payments, or an annual bill from the LEC to each participating equal access carrier for any under-payments. 3. The true-ups should result in an annual inter-company payment process based on the proportional intraLATA switched access minutes previously billed to each carrier and the intraLATA toll minutes billed by the LEC. 4. The LEC and an equal access carrier may agree to alternative compensation arrangements in lieu of an annual payment. |