Title 58, Public Utilities, Services and Carriers

A telecommunications company may include the following statement or substantially similar language in any municipal customer's bill when that customer's municipality charges a business license tax to the telecommunications company under this chapter: "Please note that included in…

(A) No telephone utility may directly or indirectly, by any device whatsoever or in any way, charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or corporation a greater or less compensation for any service rendered or supplied, or to be rendered or supplied, by the telephone uti…

Nothing herein contained shall prevent any telephone utility from granting free or reduced rate service to its officers, agents, employees, attorneys, physicians or surgeons, nor to prevent any telephone utility from granting free or reduced rate service to the State of South Car…

No telephone utility shall, as to rates or services, make or grant any unreasonable preference or advantage to any person or corporation or subject any person or corporation to any unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage. No telephone utility shall establish or maintain any unreas…

As used in this article: (1) "CMRS connection" means each mobile number assigned to a CMRS customer. (2) "Commercial Mobile Radio Service" (CMRS) means commercial mobile radio service under Sections 3(27) and 332(d), Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. Section 151, …

Nothing in this article expands, diminishes, or otherwise affects any existing jurisdiction of the commission over any local exchange provider, prepaid wireless provider, CMRS provider, or VoIP provider; or any services provided by any such provider.

(A) The commission may establish and the Office of Regulatory Staff may administer and promote a statewide program to provide telephone access to persons who are speech or hearing impaired. (B) The program may include, but is not limited to: (1) a statewide dual party relay servi…

(A) The commission may require each local exchange provider, CMRS provider, and VoIP provider operating in this State to impose a monthly dual party relay charge not to exceed ten cents, and each prepaid wireless seller to impose a dual party relay charge of the same amount on ea…

(A) A local exchange provider must collect the dual party relay charge established in Section 58-9-2530(A) on each local exchange access facility. (1) For bills rendered on or after the effective date of this section, for any individual local exchange access facility that is capa…

The Office of Regulatory Staff may establish a distribution system for TTY and other related telecommunications devices. In establishing this program, the Office of Regulatory Staff may: (1) select an administrator through the State Fiscal Accountability Authority procurement pro…

Every telephone utility shall provide and maintain facilities and equipment to furnish reasonably adequate and efficient telephone service to its customers in this State.

This article regulates the provision of communications service by an agency, entity, instrumentality, or a political subdivision of this State, excluding the State Department of Administration, for services provided as of the effective date of this article.

As used in this article: (A)(1) "Government-owned communications service provider" means a state or local political subdivision, instrumentality of the State, person, or entity providing a communications service to the public for hire over a facility, operation, or system that is…

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a government-owned communications service provider must: (1) be subject to the same local, state, and federal regulatory, statutory, and other legal requirements to which nongovernment-owned communications service providers are subject,…

(A) A government-owned communications service provider shall pay or collect taxes annually in a manner equivalent to taxes paid by a nongovernment-owned communications service provider through payment of the following: (1) all state taxes, including corporate income taxes under S…

The Department of Insurance must determine the South Carolina average market rate for private sector liability insurance for communications operations. To have government-owned and nongovernment-owned communications service providers in the same competitive position, to the exten…

(A) A government-owned communications service provider may petition the commission to designate one or more areas as an unserved area. The petition must identify with specificity each 2010 Census tract within a persistent poverty county described in Section 58-9-2610(G) and each …

(A) For any government-owned communications service provider that, on or before the effective date of this act, was awarded funding for a Comprehensive Community Infrastructure middle-mile project pursuant to the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program administered by the Unit…

No later than five years from the effective date of this act and every five years following the submission of the first report, the State Regulation of Public Utilities Review Committee must submit to the General Assembly a report examining the effect of this act on residential a…

When ordered by the commission after notice to other interested telephone utilities and the public and due hearing any telephone utility may be required to establish, construct, maintain, and operate any reasonable extension of its existing facilities. If any such extension, howe…

(A) No telephone utility shall begin the construction or operation of any telephone utility plant or system, or of any extension thereof, except those ordered by the commission under the provisions of Section 58-9-270, without first obtaining from the commission a certificate tha…

(A) As used in this section: (1) "Bundled offering" means: (a) for a qualifying LEC, an offering of two or more products or services to customers at a single price provided that: (i) the bundled offering must be advertised and sold as a bundled offering at rates, terms, or condit…

Telephone utilities may contract with each other for the connection of their respective lines or systems and for the interchange through such connections of public telephone and communications service and for other proper purposes. A copy of every such contract shall be filed wit…

(A) No communications service provider or a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of a communications service provider shall enter into any contract, agreement, or arrangement, oral or written, with a person or entity that: (1) requires a person or entity to restrict or limit …

(A) No other communications service provider, including without limitation a carrier of last resort as defined in Section 58-9-10(10), shall be obligated to provide any communications service to the occupants of the property described herein if an owner or developer of any multi-…

Nothing contained in Articles 1 through 13 of this chapter shall be so construed as to modify, abridge, or impair any of the rights or powers granted to cities and towns under any provision of the Constitution of this State and every right, power or privilege conferred upon any c…

No telephone utility shall abandon all or any portion of its service to the public, except for ordinary discontinuance of service for nonpayment of a lawful charge or for violation of rules and regulations approved by the commission, unless written application is first made to th…

(A) This article shall be known as the "Broadband Accessibility Act". (B) The General Assembly finds that: (1) Despite the substantial efforts and billions of dollars invested by existing broadband service providers, locations within the State still lack access to broadband servi…

As used in this article, unless the context otherwise requires: (1) "Attached facility" means a broadband facility or a broadband network or any portion of a broadband network, in each case located substantially: (a) aboveground and attached to an electric cooperative's electric …

(A) Subject to the limitations set forth in this article, and in addition to all other purposes, powers, and authority currently granted to electric cooperatives under the laws of this State, an electric cooperative may do all of the following within areas in which it is authoriz…

(A) An electric cooperative shall provide communications service providers, including any broadband affiliates of such electric cooperative, with nondiscriminatory access in offering or granting rights to install or attach any attached facilities, including the right to use easem…

(A) If the owner of an interest in real property subject to an electric easement contends that the owner's property has been taken, destroyed, or physically damaged by the construction, installation, use, or enlargement of broadband networks within the electric easement on the ow…

(A) An electric cooperative may not condition the receipt of electric service on, nor provide more favorable terms for electric service for, persons that receive broadband service from the electric cooperative's broadband affiliate or any other broadband service provider. (B) An …

No telephone utility, without the approval of the Commission after due hearing and compliance with all other existing requirements of the laws of the State in relation thereto, may sell, transfer, lease, consolidate, or merge its property, powers, franchises, or privileges or any…

When in the judgment of the commission there is a reasonably substantial affiliation of any telephone utility engaged in business in this State with any other corporation or person or when in the judgment of the commission any other corporation or person either exercises, or is i…

For the purpose of encouraging economy, efficiency and improvements in methods of service any telephone utility may participate, subject to the approval of the Commission, to such extent as may be permitted by the Commission, in the additional profits arising from any economy, ef…

The Office of Regulatory Staff may, in its discretion, and subject to approval of the commission, prescribe systems of accounts to be kept by telephone utilities subject to the commission's jurisdiction and the Office of Regulatory Staff may prescribe the manner in which the acco…

Every telephone utility shall have the right, and may be so required, to charge annually as an operating expense a reasonable sum for depreciation and credit it to a reserve account for such purpose. Such reserve account shall be charged with plant retirements. But if the reserve…

No telephone utility shall for rate-making purposes, capitalize its franchises, rights, powers or privileges or its right to own and operate or enjoy any such franchise, rights, powers or privileges in excess of the amount paid to the State or to any political subdivision of the …

(A) Subject to approval of the commission, the Office of Regulatory Staff may require any telephone utility to file annual reports in such form and of such content as the Office of Regulatory Staff may require and special reports concerning any matter about which the Office of Re…

Each telephone utility shall have an office in one of the counties of this State in which its property or some part thereof is located and shall keep in such office all such books, accounts, papers, and records as shall reasonably be required by the Office of Regulatory Staff to …

Each telephone utility shall obey and comply with each and every requirement of every order, decision, direction, rule, or regulation made or prescribed by the commission and every direction, rule, or regulation made or prescribed by the Office of Regulatory Staff in the performa…

Nothing contained in Articles 1 through 13 of this chapter shall be so construed as to limit or restrict the right of cities and towns to adopt and enforce reasonable police regulations and ordinances affecting telephone utilities, not inconsistent with the provisions of Articles…

No provision of Articles 1 through 13 of this chapter shall apply or be construed to apply to commerce among the several states of the United States, except in so far as such application may be permitted under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the acts o…

Whenever the commission after a hearing finds that the existing rates in effect and collected by any telephone utility for any service are unjust, unreasonable, insufficient, unreasonably discriminatory, or in any way in violation of any provision of law, the commission shall det…

Whenever a telephone utility desires to put into operation a new rate or tariff which affects the telephone utility's general body of subscribers, the telephone utility shall give the commission and the Office of Regulatory Staff not less than thirty days' notice of its intention…