16 Tex. Admin. Code § 26.225 - Requirements Applicable to Nonbasic Services for Chapter 58 Electing Companies
(a) Application.
This section applies to any electing company as the term is defined in the
Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA) §58.002. Other sections applicable to
an electing company include, but are not limited to, §
26.224 of this title (relating to
Requirements Applicable to Basic Network Services for Chapter 58 Electing
Companies), §
26.226 of this title (relating to
Requirements Applicable to Pricing Flexibility for Chapter 58 Electing
Companies), and §
26.227 of this title (relating to
Procedures Applicable to Nonbasic Services and Pricing Flexibility for Basic
and Nonbasic Services for Chapter 58 Electing Companies). PURA §55.003 and
§55.004 do not apply to the retail services offered by an electing
company, or to the retail nonbasic services offered by a transitioning company,
as defined by PURA §65.002.
(b) Purpose. The purpose of this section is
to establish requirements for nonbasic services.
(c) Nonbasic services.
(1) Consistent with PURA §58.151 and
§58.024, these services are nonbasic services:
(A) flat rate business local exchange
telephone service, including primary directory listings and the receipt of a
directory, and any applicable mileage or zone;
(B) business tone dialing service;
(C) service connection for all business
services;
(D) direct inward dialing
(DID) for basic business services;
(E) public pay telephone services, 0+ and 0-
operator services and directory assistance services;
(F) call forwarding, call return, caller
identification, call waiting and other custom calling services and call control
options, except that residential call waiting is a basic network service until
July 1, 2006;
(G) speed dialing and
three-way calling;
(H) central
office based PBX-type services;
(I)
billing and collection services, including installment billing and late payment
plans for electing company customers;
(J) integrated services digital network
(ISDN) services;
(K) new
services;
(L) 1-plus intraLATA
message toll service (MTS);
(M)
services described in the WATS tariff of an electing company as the tariff
existed on January 1, 1995;
(N) 800
service and foreign exchange service;
(O) private line services and special access
services;
(P) paging services and
mobile services (IMTS);
(Q) 911
service provided to a local authority, if the service is available from a
provider other than the electing company;
(R) all other services subject to the
commission's jurisdiction that are not specifically classified as basic network
services in PURA §58.051;
(S)
any basic network service reclassified by the commission as a nonbasic service
pursuant to PURA §58.024.
(2) Consistent with PURA §58.155,
neither interconnection to competitive providers nor interconnection for
commercial mobile service providers is addressed in this section.
(d) Substantive requirements. An
electing company that seeks to introduce or modify rates, terms or conditions
of a nonbasic service tariff shall follow the substantive requirements in this
section and the procedural requirements in §
26.227 of this title.
Additionally, an electing company that seeks to flexibly price a nonbasic
service shall follow the requirements in §
26.226 of this title.
(1) Pricing standards. The price of a
nonbasic service may not be preferential, prejudicial, discriminatory,
predatory, or anticompetitive.
(A) Price
ceilings. This subparagraph specifies the price ceilings for certain nonbasic
services. Except as specified in this subparagraph, nonbasic services have no
price ceiling.
(i) Until September 1, 2005, a
nonbasic service listed in subsection (c)(1)(A) - (D) of this section shall be
priced at or below the price in effect on September 1, 1999.
(ii) Until September 1, 2005, a Basic Rate
Interface (BRI) ISDN service, which comprises up to two 64 Kbps B-channels and
one 16 Kbps D-channel, shall be priced at or below the price in effect on
September 1, 1999.
(iii) An
electing company shall provide to a residential customer the first three local
directory assistance inquiries in a monthly billing cycle at a maximum price of
zero dollars ($.00) until July 1, 2006.
(iv) Consistent with PURA §58.302,
switched access services shall be priced at or below the lesser of the rates in
effect on September 1, 1999, or the applicable rates described in PURA
§58.301 as those rates were further reduced when the Texas universal
service fund was implemented on July 1, 2000.
(B) Price floors. A price that is set at or
above the long run incremental cost of providing a service is presumed not to
be a predatory price. The long run incremental cost of a nonbasic service must
be established before the price floor of a nonbasic service can be determined,
pursuant to PURA §58.152. Establishment of a long run incremental cost
requires commission approval of a cost study prepared by an electing company
pursuant to the standards in §
26.214 of this title (relating to
Long Run Incremental Cost (LRIC) Methodology for Services Provided by Certain
Incumbent Local Exchange Companies (ILECS)) or §
26.215 of this title (relating to
Long Run Incremental Cost Methodology for Dominant Certificated
Telecommunications Utility (DCTU) Services), as applicable. Any application to
establish or modify a long run incremental cost shall be filed by an electing
company with the commission's Filing Clerk on or before the date a related
informational notice is filed. Such an application shall be filed separately
from the related informational notice. The minimum price of a nonbasic service
shall be the lesser of:
(i) the price for the
service in effect on September 1, 1999, except that this clause shall not be
considered for services that had either a rate of zero or no existing rate on
September 1, 1999; or
(ii) the long
run incremental cost of the service in accordance with the imputation rules and
requirements prescribed by or under PURA, Chapter 60, Subchapter D.
(2) Separately tariffed
services. Any nonbasic service offered by an electing company to customers as a
component of a package or other pricing flexibility offering shall also be
offered by the electing company as a separately tariffed service.
(e) New service.
(1) A new service, as the term is defined in
§
26.5 of this title (relating to
Definitions), is a nonbasic service under subsection (c)(1)(K) of this
section.
(2) To introduce a new
service tariff, an electing company shall follow the requirements in this
section and the procedures in §
26.227 of this title. If a new
service is offered by an electing company as a component of a package, the new
service shall also be offered as a separately tariffed service and the
separately tariffed service shall be subject to the pricing standards in
subsection (d) of this section.
(3)
A package of services that includes one or more new services and one or more
existing services shall not be considered a new service. To introduce such a
package, an electing company shall follow the requirements in this section, the
requirements in §
26.226 of this title and the
procedures in §
26.227 of this title.
Notes
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