COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
SENATE BILL NO. 278
(By Senators Love, Bailey and Wooton)
[Originating in the Committee on Finance;
reported on April 2, 1997.]
A BILL to amend and reenact sections two, four and eight, article
six, chapter twenty-four of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended; and to further
amend said article by adding thereto two new sections,
designated sections six-b and eleven, all relating to local
emergency telephone systems; defining terms; requiring
telephone companies to provide capability for an emergency
telephone system if consistent with federal law and
regulations; providing for a wireless enhanced 911 fee; public
service commission to issue order concerning fee; setting fee;
collection and distribution of fee; limiting liability for
telephone companies participating in an emergency telephone
system; and providing for confidentiality of information.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections two, four and eight, article six, chapter twenty-four of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred
thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted; and that said
article be further amended by adding thereto two new sections,
designated sections six-b and eleven, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6. LOCAL EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
§24-6-2. Definitions.
As used in this article, unless the context clearly requires
a different meaning:
(1) "Commercial mobile radio service provider" or "CMRS
provider", means cellular licensees, broadband personal
communications services (PCS) licensees, and specialized mobile
radio (SMR) providers which offer real-time, two-way switched voice
service that is interconnected with the public switched network,
and includes resellers of any commercial mobile radio service.
(12) "County answering point" means a facility to which
enhanced emergency telephone system calls for a county are
initially routed for response, and where county personnel respond
to specific requests for emergency service by directly dispatching
the appropriate emergency service provider, relaying a message to
the appropriate provider or transferring the call to the
appropriate provider.
(23) "Emergency services organization" means the organization
established under article five, chapter fifteen of this code.
(34) "Emergency service provider" means any emergency services organization or public safety unit.
(45) "Emergency telephone system" means a telephone system
which through normal telephone service facilities automatically
connects a person dialing the primary emergency telephone number to
an established public agency answering point, but does not include
an enhanced emergency telephone system.
(56) "Enhanced emergency telephone system" means a telephone
system which automatically connects the person dialing the primary
emergency number to the county answering point and in which the
telephone network system automatically provides to personnel
receiving the call, immediately on answering the call, information
on the location and the telephone number from which the call is
being made, and upon direction from the personnel receiving the
call routes or dispatches such the call by telephone, radio or any
other appropriate means of communication to emergency service
providers that serve the location from which the call is made.
(67) "Public agency" means the state, and any municipality,
county, public district or public authority which provides or has
authority to provide fire fighting, police, ambulance, medical,
rescue or other emergency services.
(78) "Public safety unit" means a functional division of a
public agency which provides fire fighting, police, medical, rescue
or other emergency services.
(89) "Telephone company" means any public utility and any CMRS
provider, which is engaged in the provision of telephone service whether primarily by means of wire or wireless facilities.
(910) "Comprehensive plan" means a plan pertaining to the
installing, modifying or replacing of telephone switching
equipment; a telephone utilities' utility's response in a timely
manner to requests for emergency telephone service by a public
agency; a telephone utilities' utility's responsibility to report
to the public service commission; charges and tariffs for the
services and facilities provided by a telephone utilities utility;
and access to an emergency telephone system by emergency service
organizations.
(1011) "Technical and operational standards" means those
standards of telephone equipment and processes necessary for the
implementation of the comprehensive plan as defined in subdivision
(9) above of this subsection.
§24-6-4. Creation of emergency telephone systems.
(a) Upon the adoption by the public service commission of
comprehensive plan, the public agency may establish, consistent
with the comprehensive plan, an emergency telephone system within
its respective jurisdiction. Nothing However, nothing herein
contained in this section, shall be construed to prohibit or
discourage in any way the establishment of multi jurisdiction or
regional systems, and any emergency telephone system established
pursuant to this article may include the territory of more than one
public agency, or may include only a portion of the territory of a public agency. To the extent feasible, emergency telephone systems
shall be centralized.
(b) Every emergency telephone system shall provide access to
emergency services organizations, police, fire fighting, and
emergency medical and ambulance services and may provide access to
other emergency services. Such The system may also provide access
to private ambulance services. The emergency telephone system
shall provide the necessary mechanical equipment at the established
public agency answering point to allow deaf persons access to the
system. In those areas in which a public safety unit of the state
provides emergency services, the system shall provide access to the
public safety unit.
(c) The primary emergency telephone number to the extent
possible, shall be uniform throughout the state.
(d) Insofar as it is consistent with applicable federal law
and federal communications commission regulations and orders, a
telephone company in the normal course of replacing or making major
modifications to its switching equipment shall include the
capability of providing for the emergency telephone system and
shall bear all costs related thereto to including that capability.
All charges for other services and facilities provided by the
telephone company, including the provision of distribution
facilities and station equipment, shall be paid for by the public
agency or public safety unit in accordance with the applicable
tariff rates then in effect for such those services and facilities. Other costs pursuant to the emergency telephone system shall be
allocated as determined by the applicable comprehensive plan of the
public service commission.
(e) All coin-operated telephones within the state shall be of
a design that will permit a caller to initiate, without first
having to insert a coin (dial tone first or post-pay systems),
local calls to the long distance and directory assistance
operators, calls to the emergency telephone number answering point,
if one has been established in his or her local calling area, and
to other numbers for services as the telephone company may from
time to time make available to the public.
§24-6-6b. Wireless enhanced 911 fee.
(a) Beginning on the first day of January, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-eight, all CMRS providers, as defined in section two
of this article, shall, on a monthly basis, collect from each of
their in-state two-way service subscribers a wireless enhanced 911
fee. No later than the first day of August, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-eight, the public service commission, shall, after
the receipt of comments and the consideration of evidence presented
at a hearing, issue an order which directs the CMRS providers
regarding all relevant details of wireless enhanced 911 fee
collection, including the determination of who is considered an in- state two-way service subscriber and which shall specify how the
CMRS providers shall deal with fee collection shortfalls caused by uncollectible accounts. The public service commission shall
solicit the views of the wireless telecommunications utilities
prior to issuing the order.
(b) The wireless enhanced 911 fee is seventy-five cents per
month for each valid retail commercial mMobile radio service
subscription, as that term is defined by the public service
commission in its order issued under subsection (a) of this
section.
(c) Beginning in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety- seven, and every two years thereafter, the public service
commission shall conduct an audit of the wireless enhanced 911 fee
and shall recalculate the fee so that it is the weighted average
rounded to the nearest penny, as of the first day of March of the
respecification year, of all of the enhanced 911 fees imposed by
the counties which have adopted an enhanced 911 ordinance:
Provided, That the public service commission may decrease the
wireless enhanced 911 fee at the beginning of the respecification
year.
(d) The CMRS providers shall, after retaining a three percent
billing fee, send the wireless enhanced 911 fee moneys collected,
on a monthly basis, to the public service commission. The public
service commission shall, on a quarterly and approximately evenly
staggered basis, disburse the fee revenue in the following manner:
(1) Each county shall receive a pro rata portion of the fee revenues received by the public service commission based on that
county's percentage of the total number of local exchange telephone
access lines and line equivalents in service in the state. The
public service commission shall recalculate the county disbursement
percentages on a yearly basis, with the changes effective on the
first day of July, and using data as of the preceding first day of
March. The public utilities which normally provide local exchange
telecommunications service by means of lines, wires, cables,
optical fibers, or by other means extended to subscriber premises
shall supply the data to the public service commission on a county
specific basis no later than the first day of June of each year;
(2) Counties which have an enhanced 911 ordinance in effect
shall receive their share of the wireless enhanced 911 fee revenue
for use in the same manner as the enhanced 911 fee revenues
received by those counties pursuant to their enhanced 911
ordinances;
(3) The public service commission shall deposit the wireless
enhanced 911 fee revenue for each county which does not have an
enhanced 911 ordinance in effect into an escrow account which it has established for that county. Any county with an escrow account
may, immediately upon adopting an enhanced 911 ordinance, receive
the moneys which have accumulated in the escrow account for use as
specified in subdivision (2), subsection (d) of this section:
Provided, That every five years from the year one thousand nine
hundred ninety-seven, all fee revenue residing in escrow accounts
shall be disbursed on the pro rata basis specified in subdivision
(1) subsection (d) of this section, except that data for counties
without enhanced 911 ordinances in effect shall be omitted from the
calculation and all escrow accounts shall begin again with a zero
balance.
(e) CMRS providers have the same rights and responsibilities
as other telephone service suppliers in dealing with the failure by
a subscriber of a CMRS provider to timely pay the wireless enhanced
911 fee.
(f)Notwithstanding the provisions of section one-a of this
article, for the purposes of this section, the term "county" means
one of the counties provided for in section one, article one,
chapter one of this code.
§24-6-8. Limitation of liability.
A public agency or a telephone company participating in an
emergency telephone system or a county which has established an
enhanced emergency telephone system, and any officer, agent or
employee of such the public agency, telephone company, or county is not liable for damages in a civil action for injuries, death or
loss to persons or property arising from any act or omission,
except willful or wanton misconduct, in connection with developing,
adopting or approving any final plan or any agreement made pursuant
to this article, or otherwise bringing into operation or
participating in the operation of an emergency telephone system or
an enhanced emergency telephone system pursuant to this article.
§24-6-10. Confidentiality of Proprietary Information.
In recognition of the fact that information pertaining to
numbers of customers and revenues collected by the CMRS providers
is obtained and maintained in a competitive environment and that
information pertaining to the providers' subscribers could be used
to the disadvantage of the participating CMRS provider, the
Legislature declares that any such information provided by the
public service commission and any county or enhanced 911 program,
is not subject to disclosure under the provisions of chapter
twenty-nine-b of this code.