HB2502 HENT AM. #1 2-27
Casto 3264
The Subcommittee on Environment, Infrastructure, and Technology moved to amend the bill by striking out everything after the enacting clause and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
§46A-6-111. Limitations on Internet or telecommunications service provider charges during service outages; penalty.
(a) Legislative purpose — The purpose of this section is to require Internet or telecommunications service providers that fail to provide subscribed customers service for five or more days (120 hours) to automatically credit the customer's account for the lack of service proportional to the number of days of disrupted services and providers doing business in this state from charging a customer for services that the customer has not received and further, prohibiting billing of customer for services during an extended service interruption caused by the provider. Therefore, the purpose of this section is to place reasonable limitations on the billing practices of Internet or telecommunications providers to assure that consumers are not required to pay for long service outages caused by the provider when he or she did not receive services, and further, prohibit billing for these services in periods when the consumer is not receiving Internet or telecommunications services.
(b) If an Internet or telecommunications service to a subscriber is interrupted for more than five days (120) continuous hours for reasons not outside the reasonable control of the provider, including force majeure, the subscriber shall automatically receive a credit or refund from the Internet or telecommunications service provider, in the next billing cycle, an amount that represents the proportionate share of such service not received in a billing period, provided the interruption is not caused by the subscriber.
(c) If a provider has violated any of the provisions of subsection (b) of this section, the Attorney General may seek a resolution of the violation and may maintain an action against the Internet or telecommunications service provider to enforce the provisions of subsection (b) of this section to recover the excessive costs billed to the customer, and a civil penalty may be assessed, in an amount determined by the court, of not less than the cost of one month of service to the customer or $5,000, whichever is lesser.
(d) Internet service providers shall provide data concerning the number of customers receiving credits per month, the total dollar of credits provided per month, and the geographic scope of outages of 120 hours or more. These reports shall be provided monthly to the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General, not later than the 10th day after the end of the preceding month and reflect the preceding month's number of outages. However, in months where there are no outages for 120 hours or more, no report shall be required. Or, in the alternative, they may provide the Network Outage Reporting System final reports to the Attorney General's office consumer protection division so long as that office agrees to maintain confidentiality.
(e) As defined by 47 U.S.C. §153, the provisions of §46A-6-111 do not apply to mobile service disruptions.
Adopted
Rejected