Ark. Code § 23-17-403

Current with legislation from 2024 Fiscal and Special Sessions.

Section 23-17-403 - Definitions

As used in this subchapter:

(1) "Access line" means a communications facility extending from a customer's premises to a serving central office comprising a subscriber line and, if necessary, a trunk facility;

(2) "Access minute", unless otherwise defined by the Arkansas Public Service Commission, means the measurement of usage to provision communications between:

(A) A customer premises and an interexchange carrier's point of interconnection with a local exchange carrier's network for the completion of end-user calls to the public switched network for the origination and termination of interexchange long distance traffic; and

(B) A customer premises and another LEC's point of termination with a local exchange carrier's network for the completion of end-user calls to the public switched network for the origination and termination of interexchange long distance traffic;

(3)

(A) "Affiliate" means any entity that, directly or indirectly, owns or controls, is owned or controlled by, or that is under common ownership or control with another entity.

(B) For the purpose of this definition, "owns or controls" means holding at least a majority of the outstanding voting power;

(4) "AICCLP member" means an ILEC that is eligible to be a member of the AICCLP after December 31, 2003, and that has not terminated its membership under § 23-17-416(f)(2);

(5)

(A) "AICCLP rate adjustment" means the local service rate adjustment, determined by the AICCLP administrator, that may be charged by each AICCLP member to its customers to recover a portion of its carrier common line net revenue requirement.

(B)

(i) For any AICCLP member that is eligible to be a member of the AICCLP as of January 1, 2004, for whom the sum of the residential local exchange rate and extended area service additive is higher than the average residential local exchange rate for all members eligible to be members as of January 1, 2004, the monthly AICCLP rate adjustment shall be the lesser of fifty cents (50¢) or an amount that yields the total monthly carrier common line net revenue requirement per access line.

(ii) For any AICCLP member that is eligible to be a member of the AICCLP as of January 1, 2004, for whom the sum of its residential local exchange rate and extended area service additive is lower than the average residential local exchange rate for all members eligible to be members as of January 1, 2004, the monthly AICCLP rate adjustment shall be the lesser of seventy-five cents (75¢) or an amount that yields the total monthly carrier common line net revenue requirement per access line.

(iii) If the amount due to an AICCLP member under § 23-17-416(h) is limited due to the annual one million three hundred thousand dollar ($1,300,000) cap under § 23-17-416(e)(8)(B)(i) and if the member's AICCLP rate adjustment and the amount due to the AICCLP member under § 23-17-416(h) do not allow the member to recover its common line net revenue requirement, the member may charge an additional amount for local rates to recover its carrier common line net revenue requirement;

(6) "Annual unseparated unlimited loop requirement" means a financial algorithm calculated annually by NECA and USAC that includes all the loop investment, expenses, and other loop costs of providing service within the study area of an eligible telecommunications carrier;

(7) "Arkansas Intrastate Carrier Common Line Pool" or "AICCLP" means the unincorporated organization of the providers of Arkansas telecommunications services, authorized by the commission and by state law, whose purpose is to manage billing, collection, and distribution of the carrier common line revenue requirements;

(8) "Arkansas intrastate telecommunications services revenues" means the revenues of all carriers that are not ILECs, that are derived from end-users for telecommunications within Arkansas and telecommunications services provided within Arkansas, including messages that are switched or otherwise temporarily transported outside of Arkansas in the process of delivering the message within Arkansas;

(9) "Average schedule company" means a company that uses a proxy established from a formula using the average costs of a group of companies rather than using the company's specific costs in reporting to NECA;

(10) "Basic local exchange service" means the service provided to the premises of residential or business customers composed of the following:

(A) Voice-grade access to the public switched network, with ability to place and receive calls;

(B) Touch-tone service availability;

(C) Flat-rate residential local service and business local service;

(D) Access to emergency services (911/E911) where provided by local authorities;

(E) Access to basic operator services;

(F) A standard white-page directory listing;

(G) Access to basic local directory assistance;

(H) Access to long distance toll service providers; and

(I) The minimum service quality as established and required by the commission on February 4, 1997;

(11) "Carrier common line net revenue requirement" means the monthly variable funding requirement of an AICCLP member, which is calculated as the sum of the member's intrastate carrier common line revenue requirement, the member's terminating carrier common line expense based on its per-minute terminations on other ILECs, the member's Arkansas Calling Plan Fund and Extension of Telecommunications Facilities Fund expense, and the member's share of AICCLP administrative fees, minus the sum of the carrier common line revenue, based on per-minute terminations received from other ILECs, carrier common line revenue received from underlying carriers for originating and terminating access minutes, the AICCLP rate adjustment, and the fixed ILEC retail billed minutes of use expense based on the data development period determination of average monthly retail billed minutes of use expense of the member;

(12) "Commercial mobile service" means cellular, personal communications systems and any service regulated pursuant to Part 20 of the rules and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission, 47 C.F.R. Part 20, or any successor provisions;

(13) "Commission" means the Arkansas Public Service Commission;

(14) "Competing local exchange carrier" or "CLEC" means a local exchange carrier that is not an incumbent local exchange carrier;

(15) "Data development period" means the time period in which the AICCLP members and initial exiting ILECs shall obtain relevant data necessary to:

(A) Calculate the fixed amounts of retail billed minutes-of-use expense and to test and obtain reliability of the billing and reporting systems to be used by the AICCLP; and

(B) Calculate the fixed carrier common line revenue shortfall for members required to exit the pool on December 31, 2003;

(16) "Electing company" means a local exchange carrier that elects to be regulated pursuant to §§ 23-17-406 - 23-17-408;

(17) "Eligible telecommunications carrier" or "ETC" means the local exchange carrier determined in accordance with § 23-17-405;

(18) "Embedded investment" means the amount of investment in a telephone plant that has already been made by an incumbent local exchange carrier as of February 4, 1997;

(19) "Exiting ILEC" means an ILEC that terminates its membership in the AICCLP under § 23-17-416(f);

(20) "Extended area service" means an unlimited local service provided to the customer at a fixed rate that:

(A) Is mandated by the commission at the election of customers within a local exchange area;

(B) Provides one-way or two-way calling between basic local exchange service customers within the local exchange area of one (1) or more incumbent local exchange carriers; and

(C) Is not included as part of basic local exchange service;

(21) "Facilities" means any of the physical elements of the telephone plant that are needed to provide or support telecommunications services, including switching systems, cables, fiber optic and microwave radio transmission systems, measuring equipment, billing equipment, operating systems, billing systems, ordering systems, and all other equipment and systems that a telecommunications service provider uses to provide or support telecommunications services;

(22) "FCC" means the Federal Communications Commission;

(23) "Federal act" means the Communications Act of 1934, as amended;

(24) "Fixed carrier common line revenue shortfall" means the total annual funding requirement of an ILEC that must exit the AICCLP under § 23-17-416(f)(1), which is calculated as the sum of an ILEC's intrastate carrier common line revenue requirement, the ILEC's terminating carrier common line expense based on its per-minute terminations on other ILECs, and the ILEC Arkansas Calling Plan Fund and Extension of Telecommunications Facilities Fund expense, minus the sum of the carrier common line revenue, based on per-minute terminations received from other ILECs, carrier common line revenue received from underlying carriers for originating and terminating access minutes, and the fixed ILEC retail billed minutes of use expense based on the data development period determination of average monthly retail billed minutes of use expense of the ILEC;

(25) "Fixed ILEC retail billed minutes of use expense" means the fixed determination of the average retail billed minutes-of-use expense paid to the AICCLP by the ILEC based upon the ILEC's three-month average retail billed minutes-of-use expense during its applicable data development period, as determined under § 23-17-416(h), exclusive of any retail billed minutes-of-use expense associated with retail billed minutes of uses provided by a toll reseller of an underlying carrier that is an ILEC;

(26) "Government entity" includes without limitation all Arkansas state agencies, commissions, boards, authorities, and all Arkansas public educational entities, including school districts, and political subdivisions, including incorporated and unincorporated cities and towns and all institutions, agencies or instrumentalities of municipalities, consolidated utility districts, and county governments;

(27) "ILEC Arkansas Calling Plan Fund and Extension of Telecommunications Facilities Fund expense" means the charge assessed against an ILEC in proportion to the AICCLP credits that were eliminated by former § 23-17-404(e)(4)(D)(iv)(b);

(28) "ILEC intrastate carrier common line revenue requirement" means the fixed annual payment that each ILEC was entitled to receive from the AICCLP, before any offsets or adjustments, as provided in the Arkansas Intrastate Carrier Common Line Pool tariff, as it existed before January 1, 2004;

(29) "Incumbent local exchange carrier" or "ILEC" means, with respect to a local exchange area, a local exchange carrier, including successors and assigns, that is certified by the commission and was providing basic local exchange service on February 8, 1996;

(30) "Interconnected VoIP service" has the meaning defined by 47 C.F.R. 9.3, as it existed on January 1, 2013;

(31) "Interstate access charge pools" means the system, currently administered by the National Exchange Carrier Association, Inc., wherein participating local exchange carriers pool billed interstate access revenues;

(32) "Local exchange area" means the geographic area, approved by the commission, encompassing the area within which a local exchange carrier is authorized to provide basic local exchange services and switched-access services;

(33) "Local exchange carrier" or "LEC" means a telecommunications provider of basic local exchange service and switched-access service. The term does not include commercial mobile service providers;

(34) "Local switching support" means funding to assist high-cost companies in recovering the costs of switching intrastate calls;

(35) "National Exchange Carrier Association, Inc.," or "NECA" means a corporation by that name or its successor that performs various administrative functions and procedural duties prescribed to it by the FCC and others;

(36) "Network element" means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. The term also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of the facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service;

(37) "Resale" means the purchase of services by one (1) local exchange carrier from another local exchange carrier for the purpose of reselling those services directly or indirectly to an end-user customer;

(38) "Rural telephone company" means a local exchange carrier defined as a rural telephone company in the federal act as of February 4, 1997;

(39) "Special intrastate ILEC revenue" means the revenue a toll reseller pays to an ILEC when the ILEC provides toll services to the toll reseller;

(40) "Study area" means a geographic area designated by the FCC and used by NECA or USAC for calculation of cost per loop within the geographic area's boundaries for federal high-cost loop support;

(41) "Switched-access service" means the provision of communications between a customer premise and an interexchange carrier's point of interconnection with a local exchange carrier's network for the completion of end-user calls to the public switched network for the origination or termination of interexchange long distance traffic;

(42) "Telecommunications provider" means any person, firm, partnership, corporation, association, or other entity that offers telecommunications services to the public for compensation;

(43) "Telecommunications Providers Rules" or "TPRs" means those rules applicable to telecommunications providers that have been adopted by the commission;

(44)

(A) "Telecommunications services" means the offering to the public for compensation the transmission of voice, data, or other electronic information at any frequency over any part of the electromagnetic spectrum, notwithstanding any other use of the associated facilities.

(B) The term does not include radio and television broadcast or distribution services, or the provision or publishing of yellow pages, regardless of the entity providing the services, or services to the extent that the services are used in connection with the operation of an electric utility system owned by a government entity;

(45)

(A) "Tier one company" means any incumbent local exchange carrier that, together with its Arkansas affiliates that are also incumbent local exchange carriers, provides basic local exchange services to greater than one hundred fifty thousand (150,000) access lines in the State of Arkansas on February 4, 1997.

(B) Changes in designation of an incumbent local exchange carrier, or portions thereof, as a tier one company or non-tier one company may be effected by prior approval from the commission pursuant to § 23-17-411(i);

(46) "Toll reseller" means a carrier that resells intrastate telecommunications services that are provided to the carrier by an underlying carrier;

(47)

(A) "Total customer access base" means the total of all eligible telecommunications carrier customer access lines within Arkansas of an entity that directly or indirectly owns or controls, is owned or controlled by, or is under common ownership or control with another entity.

(B) For the purposes of subdivision (47)(A) of this section, "own" means to own an equity interest or the equivalent thereof of more than ten percent (10%);

(48) "Underlying carrier" means a facilities-based CLEC or an interexchange carrier, other than an ILEC, that originates and terminates intrastate interexchange calls on the public switched network directly or through resale to a toll reseller or an ILEC that provides the toll services used by a toll reseller;

(49) "Universal service" means those telecommunications services that are defined and listed in the definition of basic local exchange service until changed by the commission pursuant to § 23-17-404(e)(2)(A);

(50) "Universal Service Administration Company" or "USAC" means a corporation under that name or its successor that performs various administrative and procedural duties prescribed to it by the FCC and others;

(51) "Wire center" means the location of one (1) or more local switching systems, a point at which end user's loops within a defined geographic area converge;

(52) "Wireless ETC" means a wireless eligible telecommunications carrier that is a commercial mobile service provider; and

(53) "Wireline ETC" means a wireline eligible telecommunications carrier that is a local exchange carrier.

Ark. Code § 23-17-403

Amended by Act 2021, No. 67,§ 1, eff. 2/4/2021.

Amended by Act 2019, No. 198,§ 2, eff. 2/26/2019.

Amended by Act 2013, No. 442,§ 5, eff. 3/19/2013.

Amended by Act 2013, No. 442,§ 4, eff. 3/19/2013.

Amended by Act 2013, No. 442,§ 3, eff. 3/19/2013.

Amended by Act 2013, No. 442,§ 2, eff. 3/19/2013.

Acts 1997, No. 77, § 3; 2003, No. 1764, § 1; 2003, No. 1788, §§ 1-6; 2007, No. 385, §§ 2, 3.