TITLE 56

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE AND WELFARE

CHAPTER 9

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE ASSISTANCE

56-904.  Recovery of telecommunications service revenue reductions — Administration. (1) The Idaho public utilities commission shall determine and impose a uniform statewide monthly surcharge on each end user’s business, residential and wireless access service. The surcharge shall be an amount sufficient to reimburse each carrier of residential basic local exchange service for the total amount of telephone assistance discounts provided as well as the carrier’s and the administrator’s expenses of administering the plan. Such surcharge shall be effective concurrent with the discounts given eligible subscribers. The surcharge shall be explicitly stated on end user billings but shall not be imposed on eligible subscribers.

(2)  The Idaho public utilities commission may adopt rules or issue orders necessary to receive matching federal low income telephone assistance and to implement the Idaho telephone assistance program, including procedures for adjustment and true-up of the subscriber surcharge. The commission may contract with a neutral third party to collect the surcharge, distribute assistance revenues, and perform other tasks as assigned.

(3)  All carriers of telecommunications services shall remit the assistance surcharge revenues to the fund administrator designated by the commission on a monthly basis, unless less frequent remittances are authorized by order of the public utilities commission. The administrator shall distribute telecommunication service assistance program revenues monthly to eligible telecommunication carriers in an amount that equals their costs of administering the program and the monthly discount provided to eligible subscribers.

(4)  The surcharge imposed in subsection (1) of this section, when collected from customers of mobile wireless carriers, shall be imposed only on customers with a place of primary use in Idaho. As used in this section and as defined in 4 U.S.C. section 124, "place of primary use" means the residential street address or the primary business street address in Idaho where the customer’s use of the wireless service primarily occurs.

History:

[56-904, added 1987, ch. 328, sec. 1, p. 687; am. 1998, ch. 37, sec. 11, p. 164; am. 2002, ch. 311, sec. 1, p. 885.]