Washington Administrative Code

(1) This rule applies to local exchange companies receiving federal high-cost universal service support.(2) Definitions. The following definitions apply to this section unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:"Applicant" means any person applying to a telecommunications co…

(1) This rule applies to any telecommunications company that ceases the provision of any telecommunications service in all or any portion of the state (exiting telecommunications company). This rule does not apply to:(a) Services offered by tariff that are subject to the statutor…

(1) Classes of service. The classes of service are business and residential. Each local exchange company (LEC) must file with the commission, as part of its tariff a description of the classes and types of service available to customers in each class. LECs must record for each ac…

(1) When contacted by an applicant, or when a company contacts a person, a company must:(a) Accept and process applications when an applicant for service for a particular location has met all tariff requirements and applicable commission rules;(b) Establish the due date as the da…

(1) Except for services provided under written contract pursuant to competitive classification, each company must provide an applicant for initial service with a confirming notice or welcome letter, either in writing or with permission of the customer, electronically. The confirm…

This section applies only to the provision of residential services.(1) For a local exchange company (LEC) that offers basic service as part of any bundled package of services, the requirements of this subsection apply only to its lowest-priced, flat-rated residential basic servic…

(1) As set forth in this section, a company may require a business applicant or customer to demonstrate satisfactory credit by reasonable means appropriate under the circumstances.(2) Amount of deposit. When a company requests a deposit from an applicant or customer, the amount o…

(1) Transfer of deposit. A company must transfer a customer's deposit, less any outstanding balance, from the account at one service address to another service address, when a customer moves to a new address, is required to pay a deposit, and continues to receive service from tha…

(1) Calls placed to a company's business or repair center during regular business hours must be answered either by a live representative or an automated call answering system.(2) Companies that use an automated answering system must comply with the following requirements:(a) Each…

When a customer migrates from one local exchange company (LEC) to another, where applicable, the carriers involved must perform local number portability (LNP) in compliance with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-approved method and time frame for disconnecting that serv…

For the purpose of this section "subscriber" is any one of the following: The party identified in the account records of a common carrier as responsible for payment of the telephone bill; any adult person authorized by such party to change telecommunications services or to charge…

(1) Bill frequency. Companies must offer customers, at a minimum, the opportunity to receive billings on a monthly interval, unless subsection (11) of this section applies.(2) Length of time for payment of a bill. Bill due dates must reflect a date which at a minimum allows a cus…

(1) Each local exchange company (LEC) must establish and maintain payment agencies for receipt of cash and urgent payments. For purposes of this section, a payment agency may be a business office of the company that accepts customer payments. An urgent payment is a payment that t…

A company must refund overcharges to the customer with interest, retroactive to the time of the overcharge, up to a maximum of two years, as set forth in RCW 80.04.230 and 80.04.240. This rule does not limit other remedies available to customers.[Statutory Authority: RCW 80.01.04…

Every telecommunications company must provide pro rata credits to customers of a service whenever that service is billed on a monthly basis and is not available for more than a total of twenty-four hours in a billing cycle. The minimum amount of pro rata credit a company must pro…

(1) Each company must have adequate personnel available during regular business days to address customer complaints.(2) When a company receives an oral or written complaint from an applicant or customer regarding its service or regarding another company's service for which it pro…

(1) Each company must keep a record of all complaints concerning service or rates for at least two years and, on request, make them readily available for commission review. The records must contain complainant's name and address, date and the nature of the complaint, action taken…

When a customer informs the commission that the customer has identified a problem with service or billing or other matters and the customer has been told by two or more companies that the problem is not the responding company's responsibility but another company's responsibility,…

(1) This section applies to residential, business, and resale services discontinued at the customer's request. The customer must notify the company of the date the customer wishes to discontinue service. If the customer moves from the service address and fails to request disconti…

(1) A company may discontinue service without notice or without further notice when after conducting a thorough investigation, it finds the customer has used deceptive means to initiate or continue service including, but not limited to:(a) Tampering with the company's property;(b…

(1) A company must restore a discontinued service when:(a) The causes of discontinuation not related to a delinquent balance have been removed or corrected. In the case of deceptive means, as described in WAC 480-120-172(1), this means the customer has corrected the deception and…

(1) General. Applicants or customers, excluding telecommunications companies as defined in RCW 80.04.010, are entitled to, and a company must allow, an initial use, and then, once every five years dating from the customer's most recent use of the option, an option to pay a prior …

Each company offering intrastate telecommunications service under tariff must make available for public inspection and review all tariffs governing its provision of service, as required by RCW 80.36.100. To comply with this requirement, a company must fulfill the provisions of ei…

Each company offering intrastate telecommunications service under tariff must publish all proposed changes to its tariff for at least thirty days, as required by RCW 80.36.110. For any proposed tariff change that would increase recurring or per-occurrence charges or restrict acce…

(1) This section applies to tariff changes for other than those that are subject to WAC 480-120-194.(2) A company that files a tariff change to increase any charge that a customer may incur without being quoted a rate or price (e.g., late payment fees, insufficient fund charges, …

(1) For adjudicated proceedings, when scheduling a hearing to take testimony from the public, the timing, location, and amount of notice to the public or to customers will be addressed in the prehearing conference order.(2) The notice must include all information contained in WAC…

(1) Within ten days of making a filing requiring posting, publication, or customer notice under WAC 480-120-194, 480-120-195, or 480-120-197, but no sooner than when the tariff is filed with the commission, a company must file a statement with the commission's records center that…

The commission may require notice to customers of tariff changes other than those described in these rules when the commission determines that additional customer education is needed.[Statutory Authority: RCW 80.01.040 and 80.04.180. WSR 02-11-081 (Docket No. U-991301, General Or…

(1) The commission adopts by reference the Federal Communications Commission's rules codified at sections 64.2003 through 64.2009 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations (47 C.F.R. §§ 64.2003 through 64.2009), concerning protection of Customer Proprietary Network Informati…

(1) A local exchange company may not make telephone solicitation or telemarketing calls using its list of customers with nonpublished or unlisted numbers unless it has notified each such customer at least once in the past year that the company makes such calls to its customers wi…

(1) Basic local exchange service includes access to directory listings comprised of the name, address, and primary telephone number for each customer that the local exchange company (LEC) serves in a local calling area unless the customer requests to exclude some or all of this i…

(1) An automatic dialing and announcing device (ADAD) is a device that automatically dials telephone numbers and plays a recorded message once a connection is made.(2) "Commercial solicitation" means an unsolicited initiation of a telephone conversation for the purpose of encoura…

(1) Local exchange companies (LECs) must notify customers of their rights under RCW 80.36.390 with respect to telephone solicitation. (2) For purposes of this section, "telephone solicitation" means the unsolicited initiation of a telephone call by a commercial or nonprofit compa…

(1) For purposes of this section:"Information-delivery services" means telephone recorded messages, interactive programs, or other information services that are provided for a charge to a caller through an exclusive telephone number prefix."Information provider" means the persons…

The company that provides caller identification service must provide its retail customers the capability of blocking the delivery of their numbers, names, or locations both on a per call basis and on a per line basis. The company must not charge a monthly fee or per call fee for …

(1) At least once every twenty-four hours, each local exchange company and each interexchange company owning, operating, or maintaining any portion of any dedicated 911 circuit must manually test, for continuity, the portion of the 911 circuit which it owns, operates, or maintain…

(1) Definitions."CLEC" means a competing local exchange carrier that orders collocation from an ILEC."Collocation" means the ability of a CLEC to place equipment, including microwave equipment, within or upon an ILEC's premises."Deliver" or "delivery date" means the point when th…

(1) An operator service provider must protect the confidentiality of all communications it carries, processes, or transmits unless otherwise authorized by law.(2) Each operator service provider must develop procedures its employees must follow to provide operator assistance to cu…

(1) Only for the purpose of this section:"Consumer" means the party paying for a call using operator services. For collect calls, a consumer is both the originating party and the party who receives the call."Customer" means the call aggregator or pay phone service provider (PSP) …

(1) A local exchange company (LEC) within the state of Washington must allow pay phone service providers (PSPs) to connect pay phones to its network, and a LEC must file a tariff with the commission to include the rates and conditions applicable to providing service to pay phones…

(1) For the purposes of this section, prepaid calling services (PPCS) means any transaction in which a customer pays for service prior to use and applies only to those services where the number of available minutes decreases as the customer uses the service. Prepaid calling servi…

(1) Customers must make requests for expanded local calling areas under RCW 80.04.110 (the commission's complaint statute). (2) The commission will order expansion of local calling areas only for compelling reasons. The commission will generally rely on long distance competition,…

(1) Rates, terms and conditions for telecommunications services offered pursuant to competitive classification must conform to all applicable laws, rules, and orders.(a) The commission does not review or approve rates, terms and conditions of services offered pursuant to competit…

(1) A Class B company, as defined in WAC 480-120-021 (Definitions), may use the streamlined treatment described in this section for seeking a general rate increase, as an alternative to the requirements in WAC 480-07-510 (General rate proceedings—Electric, natural gas, pipeline, …

(1) Companies must keep all records and reports required by these rules or commission order for three years unless otherwise specified in subsection (2) of this section. No records may be destroyed before the expiration of three years or the time specified in subsection (2) of th…

(1)(a) For accounting purposes, each company not classified as competitive must use the Uniform System of Accounts (USOA) for Class A and Class B Telephone Companies published by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and designated as Title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, …

Before selling, leasing, or assigning any of its property or facilities which are necessary or useful in the performance of its duties to the public, or before acquiring property or facilities of another public utility, a telecommunications company subject to the provisions of ch…