Cahill, Glick, Kim, Lentol, Mosley, Moya, Rosenthal, Simon, Solages
Add Art 12 §§231 - 233, Pub Serv L
Relates to telephone corporations', cable corporations', and combination telephone and cable corporations' and voice over internet service providers' service quality standards, credits, reports and penalties.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A8123A
SPONSOR: Brennan TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the public service law, in relation to service quality
standards, credits, reports and penalties
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends the public service law by creating a new Article 12
which requires the Commission to establish telephone service quality
standards; measures affecting out-of-service reinstatement; and minimum
performance levels; and customer graduated credits or rebates; and the
reinstatement of monitoring and measurements of service quality pursuant
to those in force on January 1, 2010.
Section 1 also authorizes the Commission to impose administrative penal-
ties for telephone corporations, cable corporations, combination tele-
phone and cable corporations, and voice over internet protocol service
providers for violations of Public Service Law or Commission regulations
based on existing penalties for combination gas and electric utilities.
Section 2 is a severability clause.
Section 3 is the enactment clause.
JUSTIFICATION:
The public needs reliable telephone service for reasons beyond conven-
ience, economic activity and civic engagement, the service is essential
to health and safety issues.
Since the elimination of mandatory penalties in 2005, telephone users
and consumer advocates have experienced and reported a deterioration in
telephone service quality. Basic standards like prompt restoration when
a service outage occurs continue to be a problem across the State. This
bill proposes to restore good telephone service quality by authorizing
the Commission to issue penalties when a telephone, cable, combination
telephone and cable corporation, or voice over internet protocol service
provider fails to properly maintain its network and would reimpose the
service quality measurement system that was in place on January 1, 2010.
The penalties portion of this bill is particularly important. Current-
ly, the Public Service Commission is not authorized under Public Service
Law to compel a telephone or cable corporation to pay a penalty.
Instead, under current law, the Commission would be forced to go to
court to force a telephone or cable corporation to pay a penalty. This
bill would authorize the Commission to impose penalties directly and
compel a telephone, cable, combination telephone and cable corpo-
ration, or voice over internet protocol service provider to pay any
penalty imposed. The penalties authorized in this bill are based on the
penalties created for gas and electric utilities which were enacted in
the 2013-2014 budget.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately
