Title 58, Public Utilities, Services and Carriers

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…

The Commission, for good cause shown, may allow changes in rates without requiring the thirty days' notice under such conditions as it may prescribe, except that when changes in general schedules of rates and charges are involved, before they may become effective, notice to the p…

(A) Whenever there is filed with the commission by any telephone utility a schedule stating a new rate or rates which affect the telephone utility's general body of subscribers, the commission shall, after notice to the Office of Regulatory Staff and the public such as the commis…

In determining just, reasonable and sufficient rates the Commission shall give due consideration to the telephone utility's property devoted to the public service; the revenues received for the service; the reasonable operating expenses and other costs necessary to provide the se…

(A) Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 58-9-570, in fixing rates and charges for a local exchange telephone utility, the commission may, upon the request of the telephone utility or upon motion of the Office of Regulatory Staff, consider in lieu of the procedures provided …

(A) Any LEC may elect to have rates, terms, and conditions determined pursuant to the plan described in subsection (B), if the commission: (1) has approved a local interconnection agreement in which the LEC is a participant with an entity determined by the commission not to be af…

Notwithstanding Sections 58-9-575 and 58-9-576, any small LEC may elect to have the rates, terms, and conditions of its services determined pursuant to alternative forms of regulation, which may differ among companies and may include, but not be limited to, price regulation, rath…

(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the commission, on the request of an interexchange telecommunications carrier, may consider, in lieu of the procedures outlined in this chapter, alternative means of regulating that carrier. If the commission first determin…

Whenever the commission, after hearing, finds that the service of any telephone utility is not reasonably adequate and efficient, the commission shall make its findings and issue an order thereon requiring such telephone utility to provide reasonable, adequate, and efficient serv…

The commission may ascertain and fix just and reasonable classifications, regulations, practices, or service to be furnished, imposed, observed, and followed by any or all telephone utilities, prescribe reasonable regulations for the examination and testing of such service and fo…

The commission may after hearing ascertain and fix the value of the whole or any part of the property of any telephone utility insofar as it is material to the exercise of the jurisdiction of the commission.