Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 515-12-1-.29 - Extended Area Service
(1)
PURPOSE. The Commission
declares that it is in the public interest to establish uniform guidelines,
standards and procedures for filing, acceptance and processing of petitions or
requests for Extended Area Service (EAS) which may be pending on, or applied
for or made subsequent to the effective date of this rule.
(2)
DEFINITIONS. For purposes of
construction and interpretation of this Rule, the following are defined as
indicated:
(a)
CCS (Hundred Calling
Seconds): A measure of telephone traffic load obtained by multiplying
the number of calls in an hour by the average call duration in seconds and
dividing that product by one hundred;
(b)
EAS (Extended Area Service):
A switching and trunking arrangement which provides for non-optional, unlimited
two way, flat rate calling service between two or more exchanges, provided at a
local exchange rate to be set by the Georgia Public service commission (GPSC;
hereinafter "GPSC" or "The Commission");
(c)
Exchange Regrouping: A
method of automatically moving an exchange into another rate group (based on
the number of access lines available for local calling) if the number of access
lines is increased so that the exchange no longer fits in the original rate
group;
(d)
Holding
Time: The total duration, in time, of one completed call;
(e)
Incremental Rate: That rate,
if any, which may be added to each subscriber of an exchange to offset any
increased revenue requirement which may be found by the Commission to be due to
EAS provision; any such rate increase shall be apportioned between classes of
customers in such a manner as the Commission may in the exercise of its sound
discretion, direct and apportioned among the various exchanges included in the
newly expanded toll free area in such a manner as the Commission may, in the
exercise of its sound discretion, direct;
(f)
Access Line: A
communications facility extending from a customer's premises to a serving
central office comprising a subscriber line and, if necessary, a trunk
facility, e.g., a WATS access line, TWX access line;
(g)
Stimulation Factor: A
measure of the increase in telephone messages between two exchanges when they
are connected by EAS instead of message toll service ("long
distance").
(3)
GUIDELINES FOR COMMISSION APPROVAL. The following guidelines shall
be applied by the Commission, in considering and reaching a decision in
connection with any proposal for EAS:
(a)
Whether, in the exercise of its sound discretion, the Commission determined
that the community of interest factor between the affected exchanges is
sufficient to warrant the application of EAS to the affected exchanges, i.e.,
that it is in the best interest of the affected exchanges that EAS be
granted;
(b) Whether the
incremental rates to be charged for the EAS arrangement, as determined by the
Commission, will, in the EAS area as a whole, generate revenue within the
affected exchanges (i.e., all exchanges in the newly expanded toll free area)
sufficient to meet any increased revenue requirements found by the Commission
to result from the provision of EAS, taking into account the overall financial
situation of the affected telephone companies;
(c) Whether the proposed EAS is found by the
Commission, in the exercise of its sound discretion, to be of sound political,
and/or social and/or economic or other value to the communities affected and
that benefits to be realized justify and/or outweigh any additional costs
incurred.
(4)
FILING REQUIREMENTS. The Commission may, on its own motion,
initiate an inquiry into an EAS proposal, may set forth its own proposal and
may otherwise initiate the procedures for EAS described herein. In addition,
the Commission may initiate such an inquiry and trigger such procedures in
response to any of the following:
(a) A
petition signed by at least ten percent (10%) of the subscribers in the
telephone exchange from which the petition originates. Any such petition filed
with the Commission shall set forth the name and telephone number of each
petition signer; or
(b) A petition,
request or resolution adopted and filed with the Commission by any elected
representative or governing body of a political subdivision which is served, in
whole or in part, by any exchange(s) requested in any such petition request or
resolution, to be considered for EAS; or
(c) A petition file by one or more telephone
companies who have jurisdiction over at least one exchange sought to be
included in EAS; or
(d) A petition,
request or resolution filed by any regional, county, city or other Chamber of
Commerce or Development Authority representing at least one of the exchanges
sought to be afforded EAS;
(e) All
petitions for EAS, regardless of how initiated, shall state the name of the
petitioner's exchange(s) and the name(s) of the exchange(s) to which EAS is
sought.
(5) TRAFFIC
STUDY.
(a) Upon receipt of a proper filing
under the provisions given in (4) above, or on its own motion, the Commission
shall cause a traffic study to be conducted. Results of this traffic study
shall be reported to the Commission in such time frame as the Commission may
direct, but in no event less than 30 nor more than 90 days from the date of the
Commission's transmittal of an Order to the affected telephone companies
directing that the study be undertaken. The data filed shall be developed from
and based upon a minimum thirty (30) day study of representative calling
patterns, shall be in such form, detail and content as the Commission may
reasonably require and shall include, as a minimum, the following information,
unless specifically waived by the Commission:
1. The number of messages and calculated
calling rates, expressed in messages per access line per month, over each
interexchange route and in each direction, segregated between business and
residential users and combined for both; and
2. A detailed analysis of the distribution of
calling usage among subscribers, over each route and in each direction,
segregated between business and residential users and combined, showing, for
each category, the number of customers making 0 calls, 1 call, etc., through 15
calls and 16 or more calls per month;
3. Data showing, by classes of service, the
number of access lines in service for each of the exchanges being
studied;
4. The interexchange toll
rates, distance between rate centers, the number and duration of calls and the
average revenue per message (ARPM) for the calls studied;
5. The number of foreign Exchange (FX) lines
in service and the average calling volumes carried on these lines expressed (a)
as calculated messages per month and (b) in CCS units.
(b) As a guideline for evaluating community
of interest, the Commission may consider that such a community of interest
exists when the combined two way calling rate over each interexchange route
under consideration equals or exceeds, on the average, four (4) messages per
access line per month or at least fifty percent (50%) of the subscribers in the
exchanges affected make at least three (3) calls per month, except that:
1. On any given route between two exchanges,
when the exchange of the petitioning subscribers has less than one half the
number of access lines as the larger exchange, studies of one-way traffic
originating in the smaller exchange may be used, in which case the community of
interest guidelines will be met if a calling rate of four (4) or more messages
on the average per access lines per month from the smaller exchange to the
larger exchange or exchanges to which it seeks inclusion or at least fifty
percent (50%) of the exchange subscribers in the smaller exchange make three or
more calls per month to the larger exchange or exchanges to which it seeks
inclusion.
(c) In the
event that the interexchange traffic patterns over the given route do not meet,
in the sound discretion of the Commission, community of interest
qualifications, the Commission may, in the exercise of its sound discretion,
determine that no further investigation would be warranted and may deny the
petition.
(6) COST
STUDY.
(a) Concurrently with, or following
the procedures contained in (4) and (5) above, as the Commission may Order or
Direct, the company or companies involved may be ordered by the Commission to
initiate studies necessary to determine the changes in costs which may
reasonably be expected to result from the establishment of the requested EAS.
Such studies shall, however, be ordered and the results of such studies shall
be considered by the Commission prior to granting EAS. These studies will
consider and develop, for each route, relevant revenues and costs over a one
year period immediately following the potential date forinitiation of the
service and for a one year period five years subsequent to the potential
initiation of the service, including the following information:
1. Net increases in capital costs resulting
from required additions to network capacity less reductions in required
quantities of facilities and equipment utilized for toll services between the
exchanges. The added investment will be based upon the additional switching and
trunking needs necessary to accommodate the incremental usage at prescribed
levels of service, as may be determined from estimates of call stimulation
factors and holding time effects due to Extended Area Service. Annual charge
factors will be applied to the added investment to obtain the additional annual
costs attributable to this source;
2. Analysis of increases and decreases in
expenses and the net effect on operating expenses;
3. A separate schedule showing local revenue
increases resulting from exchange regrouping, as applicable;
4. Analysis by exchange of changes in:
(i) Intrastate Intralata toll
revenues;
(ii) Intrastate Intralata
access charges;
(iii) Intrastate
Intralata access revenues.
(b) On or before a date specified by the
Commission in its Directive or Order, which shall be no less than 30 nor more
than 90 days from the date of transmittal of the Commission's Directive or
Order to complete a cost study, the telephone company or companies shall file
with the Commission a summary of the results of this study, together with
supporting schedules and such detail as will be sufficient to permit the
identification of study components and verification of study results.
Coincident with the filing of cost study results, respondent(s) shall submit
recommendations for proposed incremental rate increases, by classes of service,
necessary to support the added service.
(7) DIVISION OF COSTS
(a) Having established the annual average
incremental revenue requirement created by the new EAS, the Commission will
determine the rate increment to be charged to subscribers in the affected
exchange(s), i.e., those exchanges constituting a new or enlarged toll free
area including both those which may have been part of a preexisting toll free
area and those that may have been added or moved from one toll free area to
another. The Commission may, in the exercise of its sound discretion and based
upon the evidence before it, order costs to be shared by exchanges not included
in the enlarged toll free area.
(b)
New Extended Area service will be priced using those rate increments designed
to recover the added revenue requirement for each interexchange route and the
total increment chargeable to subscribers will be the sum of the increments
from all new Extended Area Service routes established for that exchange after
the effective date of this rule.
(c) the annual average incremental revenue
requirement for each new EAS route shall be apportioned among the various
exchanges involved (i.e., both those exchanges which might be added to an
existing toll free area as well as those exchanges which might previously have
been included in an existing toll free area) as the Commission in the exercise
of its sound discretion may determine to be most equitable and fair to all
subscribers. The following are guidelines only and are not intended to
prescribe or mandate criteria to be applied by the Commission in reaching its
determination, but each shall be considered by the Commission and accorded such
weight as the Commission may, in light of all the evidence before it and in the
exercise of its sound discretion determine to be appropriate:
1. If the exchanges are approximately the
same size and two way community of interest is approximately the same, then
division of costs should be approximately equal for each subscriber in each
exchange.
2. If the petitioning
exchange has less than half the number of access lines as the larger exchange
and two way community of interest is approximately the same or the one way
community of interest of one exchange is less than 10 times that of the other
exchange, then the Commission may provide that each exchange's subscribers
would bear costs attributable to that exchange.
3. If the community of interest in one
direction is ten times (or more than ten times) that of the other direction,
the Commission may provide that total costs be divided among the subscribers of
the exchange with the higher community of interest.
4. In the event that this division of costs
indicates that the increment would be more than the Commission determines to be
just and reasonable, the Commission may, in the exercise of its sound
discretion, allocate costs in some other fashion or may determine that no
further investigation would be warranted and could, in the exercise of its
sound discretion, deny the petition.
5. The Commission, in the exercise of its
sound discretion, may prescribe such rate mechanism, including but not limited
to apportionment among classes of rate payers, as the Commission may determine
to be fair, equitable and necessary to recover, from appropriate rate
categories, such costs of EAS as the Commission may find to be
legitimate.
6. In determining
whether any rate increase is warranted, the Commission will first make a
determination as to what the true costs of EAS are, giving due consideration to
that information required by Section (6) above. Once that determination has
been made, and prior to allocation to classes, the Commission shall conduct
such review as, in the exercise of its sound discretion, may be prudent and
necessary to determine whether any rate increase is justified and if so the
amount of any such increase, as well as how any such increase should be
allocated among classes. Such review may, but is not required to, include
consideration of the overall earnings and other financial circumstances of the
company or companies involved.
(8) JOINT INFORMAL MEETING.
(a) An informal meeting between the petition
spokesman, telephone company or companies and Commission staff may be held at
any time to present and discuss the traffic studies, cost studies and division
of costs, so long as all parties are advised of any such meeting and afforded a
full and fair opportunity to attend and participate.
(9) PUBLIC HEARING.
(a) At any time, on the Commission's own
motion, upon request by either petitioners or telephone companies affected, or
at the request of any citizen, Public Hearings maybe held to provide for public
comment, for the taking of evidence, for the examination and verification
ofdata required by the Commission pursuant to this Rule, the introduction of
such additional testimony, evidence and information as may be germane to the
issues and to afford an opportunity for all parties of interest to be fully
heard or for all of these purposes or others as may be determined by the
Commission. Any such hearings may include, but are not necessarily limited to,
the following:
1. Presentation of traffic
study results;
2. Presentation of
cost study results;
3. Presentation
of division of costs;
4. Public
testimony;
5. Rebuttal testimony on
cost study, division of costs or any other matters presented;
6. Any other testimony or other documentary
or other evidence deemed by the Commission to be relevant and
germane.
(b) At least
one hearing including, but not limited to, elements (a)1. through 6. above
shall be held by the Commission prior to granting EAS and all relevant and
material evidence introduced at any such hearing shall be considered by the
Commission prior to granting EAS.
(c) in the event the Commission, in the
exercise of its sound discretion, shall determine that the hearing record
indicates the petition not to be in the public interest, the Commission may
determine that no further investigation is warranted and may deny the
petition.
(d) The Commission may,
in response to petitions from petitioners, from telephone companies, from
others or on its own motion, hold such other Public Hearings at such times and
in such places as it may determine to be appropriate, requiring or allowing
such testimony or the introduction of such evidence as may be consistent with a
sound determination of the public's wishes and concerns and with gathering
evidence to enable the Commission to reach a sound decision.
(10) SUBSCRIBER SURVEY.
(a) In all cases where a proposal for
Extended Area Service has been initiated, the Commission may, at any time after
initiation of any such proposal, order a survey by mail to be made under its
supervision of all subscribers so affected.
(b) The customer survey explanatory letter
shall include all pertinent information that would enable the customer to
exercise a rational choice of acceptance or rejection of the proposal and shall
contain at least the following items, along with such other items as the
Commission may order or direct:
1. A brief
explanation of the purpose of the survey;
2. A tabulation showing, by classes of
service, the increases in rates to which subscribers would or might be subject.
This letter shall state separately for each exchange required to be surveyed
the amount of local service rate increase applicable to that exchange both in
the event all exchanges under consideration vote for and are granted EAS or
only the petitioning exchange;
3. A
listing of the telephone exchanges and three-digit telephone number prefixes
which would become accessible if the Extended Area Service were approved, as
well as the number of access lines currently available to subscribers and the
number of access lines which would be available if EAS were approved, along
with current comparable telephone rates in the exchange (so that a comparison
could be made with any rate resulting from an increase);
4. A statement indicating that only those
voting by a signed return postcard will be counted;
5. The date by which the postcard ballots
must be postmarked to be considered. This return date will provide, as a
minimum, a period of thirty days from the date on which the survey letter is
mailed, unless such time period is shortened by the Commission; provided,
however, that, in no event shall the return date be less than ten days from the
date of mailing to the customer.
(c) The customer survey letter shall be a
separate mailing, shall contain no additional material or information not
contemplated by this rule or directed and approved by the Commission and shall
include a pre-addressed, return postage paid card ballot which shall provide at
least the following information:
1. A brief
statement of the service proposal being voted on as more fully described in the
customer survey letter;
2. Spaces
for the customer to indicate his or her preference for or against the
proposal;
3. Lines for signature,
telephone number and date;
4. A
space for customer comments, if desired;
5. The date by which the ballot must be
postmarked in order to be considered in the determination of voting
results.
(d) Both the
subscriber survey letter and the return postcard ballot as well as the envelope
(and any graphic or printed material contained thereon) shall have the prior
approval of the Commission before mailing and the postcard ballot shall be
returnable to the commission for tabulation of results.
(e) The Commission shall approve an
independent company or organization to tabulate said ballots and report the
results to the Commission. All costs incurred in connection with preparation of
all materials, costs of mailing and costs of collection and tabulation shall be
borne by the telephone company or companies involved and such costs shall be
only those costs found by the Commission to have been reasonable and prudent
and necessary.
(f) The requested
EAS may be denied by the Commission upon a finding that:
1. A simple majority of affirmative votes of
those voting was not realized, in the aggregate, from the total votes cast in
all exchanges in the subscriber survey; or
2. A simple majority of affirmative votes of
those casting ballots was not realized from a given petitioning exchange
(denial in this instance would be warranted only as to that
exchange).
(11) ALTERNATIVES TO EXTENDED AREA SERVICE.
(a) Whenever interexchange traffic patterns
are such that subscriber needs may be adequately served by alternative service
offerings, or petitions may not fully meet the requirements of this rule but
higher than average interexchange message traffic exists, the Commission will
give consideration to other alternatives including, but not necessarily limited
to, the following:
(a) Optional EAS/Extended
Community Calling. Features include:
1.
Optional;
2. One way to selected
exchanges;
3. Flat rate for a block
of time measured rate for overtime.
(b) Circle Calling Plan. Features include:
1. Optional;
2. One Way to selected circles, i.e.
bands;
3. Flat rate per band and
discounted toll rate for usage.
(c) Measured Rate Service. Features include:
1. Primarily optional;
2. Charges based upon frequency, length,
distance and time of day;
3.
Subscriber control of bill by control of usage.
(12)
CONSIDERATION OF DATA
AND EVIDENCE BY COMMISSION.
(a) The
Commission in reaching its decision may consider any or all of the data
described and collected herein as well as any other data which the Commission
may order or direct to be collected, produced or analyzed and any other
evidence, testimony or data which the Commission may choose to consider based
upon its implicit finding of relevance so long as such data is available to all
parties and that all parties have a full and fair opportunity in an open
hearing to cross examine any such testimony, to present evidence to rebut any
other evidence presented or considered, or otherwise have been afforded all due
process rights to which they may be entitled.
Notes
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