Source: https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/30/088/07501
Timestamp: 2018-02-19 13:59:53
Document Index: 735138606

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7501', '§ 5', '§ 12', '§ 29', '§ 31', '§ 2']

(Cite as: 30 V.S.A. § 7501)
(a) It is the purpose of this chapter to create a financial structure that will allow every Vermont household to obtain basic telecommunications service at an affordable price, and to finance that structure with a proportional charge on all telecommunications transactions that interact with the public switched network.
(1) "Basic telecommunications service" means that a customer has available at his or her location:
(B) the ability to transmit network switching instructions through tones generated by customer-owned equipment;
(C) the ability to transmit and receive the customer's computer-generated digital data, either by digital or analog transmission, reliably and at common transmission rates, using customer-owned equipment;
(2) "Interactive" means that a communications medium is regularly used to transmit information in two directions.
(3) "Line in service" means a circuit or channel connecting a customer to the public switched network or to the Internet.
(4) "Private network" means a telecommunications system entirely owned and operated by a single corporate or individual person other than a telecommunications service provider and not available to the general public.
(5) "Public switched network" means the communications network owned and operated by telecommunications service providers, some of whom are common carriers.
(6) "Service area" means:
(A) in the case of a rural telephone company, the company's study area as approved by the Federal Communications Commission; or
(B) in the case of a local exchange carrier, other than a rural telephone company, the carrier's local exchange service area as approved by the Public Utility Commission.
(7) "Service location" means a business or residential geographic point of contact of a telecommunications service for purposes of the Enhanced 911 network. The number of service locations in each exchange shall be determined by the Department of Public Service in periodic updates to the State Telecommunications Plan based on analysis of the locations in the database of the Vermont Enhanced 911 Board.
(8) "Telecommunications service" means the transmission of any interactive electromagnetic communications that passes through the public switched network. The term includes transmission of voice, image, data, and any other information, by means of wire, electric conductor cable, optic fiber, microwave, radio wave, or any combinations of such media, and the leasing of any such service.
(A) Telecommunications service includes:
(iv) two-way cable television service; and
(B) Notwithstanding the provisions of this subdivision (8), as used in this chapter, telecommunications service does not include:
(iii) Private network services; provided, however, that payments by a private network to a telecommunications service provider, such as for point-to-point transmission services, are not exempt under this subdivision.
(9) "Telecommunications service provider" means a company required by law to hold a certificate of public good from the Public Utility Commission to offer telecommunications service for intrastate service, or is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission to offer interstate telecommunications service. (Added 1993, No. 197 (Adj. Sess.), § 5; amended 1995, No. 99 (Adj. Sess.), § 12; 1997, No. 71 (Adj. Sess.), § 29, eff. March 11, 1998; 1997, No. 156 (Adj. Sess.), § 31, eff. April 29, 1998; 2013, No. 190 (Adj. Sess.), § 2, eff. June 16, 2014.)