The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
New York
The PSC is considering whether to grant a request, made by the Connect New York Coalition, to convene a formal proceeding to investigate the state of telecommunications services in New York. The petition asks that the PSC focus attention on specific areas of concern including but not limited to: (1) factual and operational realities of the system and whether they are consistent with PSC assumptions and predictions; (2) the inadequacy of PSC-defined required basic services; (3) changes in regulatory practice that have diminished public awareness and public participation and which have led to deterioration of service and increased cost; (4) deterioration of the quality of service; (5) deterioration of the physical infrastructure; (6) misallocation of costs leading to excessive rates; and 7) systemic failure of the availability of competitive broadband services.
ENERGY
New York
The PSC is considering implementing a proposed accelerated switching process which will reduce the period between when a customer enrolls with a commodity supplier and when service by that supplier commences. For changes in electricity and/or gas supplier, where the customer switches between energy service companies (ESCOs) or between an ESCO and a distribution utility, the switch would have to occur 5 business days from the date the customer agrees to the switch. Staff will convene a technical conference to discuss the accelerated switching proposal on September 9, 2014. Comments on the proposed rule are due no later than September 29, 2014. TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see Bulletin dated 8/4/14.
Ohio
Pursuant to the PUC five-year review requirement, Chapter 4901:1-20 is rescinded effective August 21, 2014. The rules relate to the filing of service plans with the PUC by electric utilities. Senate Bill 221 (enacted in 2008) superseded the statutory requirements that were the basis of Chapter 4901:1-20. Chapter 4901:1-35, Market-Based Standard Service Offer and Competitive Bidding Process for Electric Utilities, and Chapter 4901:1-37, Corporate Separation, address the corporate separation and electric standard service offer topics formerly covered in Chapter 4901:1-20.
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