2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-SEVEN - Public Service (§§ 1 — 2641) › PART II - Communications (§§ 265 — 539) › Chapter 19 - Puerto Rico Telecommunications Act of 1996 (§§ 265 — 272) › Subchapter III - Regulation and Supervision (§§ 269 — 269l) › § 269c - Competitive safeguards

(a) The Board shall adopt the regulations needed to require the incumbent local exchange service carrier to provide services and access to its installations to any certified telecommunications company that requests it at any point of its network where it is technically feasible and in an unbundled manner, including any feature, function and capacity of its network, through the payment of fees determined on the basis of its real cost and profits as foreseen in the Federal Communications Act and under reasonable and nondiscriminatory conditions, mutually agreed on by the parties.
(b) Every telecommunications company shall have the duty to provide interconnection to its facilities directly or indirectly at any point within its network where it is technically feasible, under fair and nondiscriminatory terms and without unnecessary technical delays and restrictions.
(c) Every local exchange service carrier shall provide interconnection and access to its network at any point that is technically feasible through the payment of fees based on the real costs and profits as foreseen in the Federal Communications Act, and on individually designed terms, as agreed on in the interconnection contract with said telecommunications company, and in every case, and in accordance with terms not less favorable than those provided to the affiliates of the local exchange service carrier.
(d) Every local exchange service carrier shall offer and provide the features, functions and capacity of its network, in a nondiscriminatory manner, and subject to an interconnection contract consistent with the following principles:
(1) Each local exchange service carrier shall facilitate competition in the local exchange services allowing interconnection to other telecommunications companies at any point of its local network where it is technically feasible. Every local exchange service carrier shall offer access to its network in an unbundled manner giving separate access at any point of its network where technically feasible to:
(A) Local access lines (connecting the main offices of the local telephone service to the subscriber’s facilities);
(B) certain exchange functions of the main office;
(C) exchange functions of the “tandem” office, and
(D) transport between the main office of the local exchange service carrier and/or the exchange equipment of the “tandem” offices.
(2) Each local exchange service carrier shall offer for resale at wholesale prices any telecommunications service that said carrier renders at retail price to subscribers other than telecommunications companies.
(3) All segregated rates negotiated by a local exchange service carrier in the interconnection contract shall follow a methodology that allows the local exchange service carrier to recover the real cost of providing the service plus a reasonable profit, as provided in § 252(d)(1) of the Federal Communications Act.
The local exchange service carriers may charge the telecommunications companies for the services or use of facilities which are indispensable to the rendering of the service or the facilities requested if said services or facilities are technically necessary to render the services requested.
(e) The Board shall make [sic] ensure that all telecommunications companies are fairly compensated for the transportation and termination of telecommunications services through their networks and that the compensation reflects the reasonable and necessary costs of each company. The Board shall require reciprocal compensation arrangements and shall allow arrangements of negotiated compensation, which may include bill and keep, symmetrical compensation, or any other reasonable distribution of fees that is acceptable to the contracting parties. By petition of the parties during the negotiations, the Board shall comply with the requirements of § 269d of this title and § 252 of the Federal Communications Act of 1996.
(f) Every telecommunications company shall provide, under fair and nondiscriminatory terms, direct or indirect interconnection at any point of its network where technically feasible, and access to its installations with all the features, functions and capacities thereof, including physical collocation, except that said company may provide virtual collocation if the telecommunications company proves to the Board that physical collocation is not practical due to limitations of space. Likewise, every telecommunications company shall make available the information needed for the transmission, routing and collection of any telecommunications service, including access to the database, signal systems and transmission process, to assure the interoperability of the network of the telecommunications company that receives the interconnection petition and the telecommunications company that requests it.
(g) Every telecommunications company shall have access, under fair and nondiscriminatory terms, to the right of way of other telecommunications companies. Every telecommunications compan[y] shall provide nondiscriminatory access to any right of way owned by it or under its control [as mutually] agreed on. All charges and/or conditions for the use of any easements shall be fair and reasonable; and at the same time, shall be consistent with the rules and decisions of the Federal Communications Commission, of the Board and with the judicial decisions which have interpreted the applicable provisions of the Federal Communications Act.
(h) The Board shall administer the numbering of telecommunications and shall make the numbers available to the telecommunications companies on an equal basis in the measure that the Federal Communications Commission delegates to it the corresponding power. The cost of establishing agreements for the administration of the numbering of telecommunications and number portability shall be defrayed by all the telecommunications companies on a neutral competitive basis and as established or provided by the Federal Communications Commission.
(i) All local exchange service carriers shall provide, in the measure that is technically feasible, number portability, pursuant to the norms issued by the Federal Communications Commission. If the Commission has not issued norms to such effect by December 31, 1996, the Board shall evaluate other number portability programs that could be feasible.
(j) Every local exchange service carrier shall offer reliable and nondiscriminatory access to the directory assistance service; operator service; relay service; repair service; 9-1-1 service where applicable; to telephone directories; referral service and change of number; and shall provide every telecommunications company that requests it, at a reasonable price, the name and address of its clients for billing purposes, and the names and addresses of its clients that have been published in a telephone directory directly or indirectly by said carrier, for the purposes and under the terms and conditions to be negotiated by the parties. All telecommunications companies shall cooperate to provide reliable 9-1-1 and relay system services.
(k) No telecommunications company shall use the income generated by noncompetitive services to subsidize the offering or rendering of competitive services, nor shall it discriminate in favor of its own competitive service when providing telecommunications services.
(l) No company shall offer telecommunications service at prices lower than the cost of rendering the same, except for brief periods of time and under those terms and conditions previously approved by the Board. When evaluating the petitions submitted by the telecommunications companies under this subsection, the Board shall take into consideration their impact on free competition and damages that could be caused to their competitors. The Board shall see to the strictest compliance of this subsection and, without impairing the rights of the telecommunications companies thus affected, shall file complaints for monopolistic practices before the Department of Justice, and by petition of the company against which a complaint has been filed, take the action that the Board itself deems pertinent pursuant to this chapter.
(m) Every telecommunications company that provides competitive and noncompetitive services, be it directly or through a subsidiary or affiliate, shall keep separate accounting systems for its competitive and non-competitive services.
(n) In case that a complaint is filed by a telecommunications company against another telecommunications company for violation of this section, the latter shall, if the Board requests it, present its annual audit so that the Board may determine if said telecommunications company has, in effect, complied with the requirements of this section. Said audit, and all the information related to it, shall be public, with the exception of that which the Board decides to keep confidential and for its exclusive use. The information it decides to keep confidential shall be that which is necessary to protect proprietary information, business or trade secrets, under subsection (b)(2) of § 267f of this title.
(o) In case a telecommunications company files a complaint against another telecommunications company, the Board shall have access to all the accounts and records of the latter, in order to verify compliance of this section, including all the working papers and support material of any audit carried out under this section. All material requested pursuant to the provisions established herein shall be made available to whoever requests it, except that the Board shall keep confidential and for its exclusive use whatever material that is essential to protect proprietary information, business or trade secrets pursuant to subsection (b)(2) of § 267f of this title.
(p) Every local exchange service carrier shall provide a public notice on the changes in the necessary information related to the transmission and routing of the services used by their facilities or networks, as well as any other change that may affect the interoperability of their facilities and networks with those of any other competing telecommunications company.
(q) Within one hundred and eighty (180) days after the approval of this act, the Board shall adopt the regulations needed to implement the requirements of this section.
(r) No law or regulation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico nor any municipal ordinance shall limit or prohibit, nor shall have the effect of limiting or prohibiting the capacity of a telecommunications company to render competitive telecommunications services at intrastate or interstate level; Provided, however, That the courts of Puerto Rico shall not put into effect or require compliance of said laws, regulations or municipal ordinances that have or could have the effect of preventing or otherwise limiting the free rendering of such services.
(s) Nothing of the herein provided shall impair the rights under the Federal Statute that have been claimed before the Public Service Commission.
History —Sept. 12, 1996, No. 213, § III-4.