SB 258 – AS INTRODUCED
2014 SESSION
06/01
SENATE BILL 258
AN ACT permitting the public utilities commission to authorize a telephone company to permanently discontinue its service.
SPONSORS: Sen. Woodburn, Dist 1
COMMITTEE: Energy and Natural Resources
This bill permits the public utilities commission to authorize certain telephone companies to permanently discontinue service.
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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.
Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]
Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
14-2688
06/01
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Fourteen
AN ACT permitting the public utilities commission to authorize a telephone company to permanently discontinue its service.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
1 Public Utilities; Discontinuance of Service; Authority of Commissioner. Amend RSA 374:28 to read as follows:
374:28 Authority of Commission.
I. The commission may authorize any public utility to discontinue, temporarily or during such portion of each year as the commission may deem expedient, any part of its service whenever it shall appear that such temporary or seasonal discontinuance will not unreasonably inconvenience the public, or to discontinue the same permanently and remove the equipment essential to the same, whenever it shall appear that the public good does not require the further continuance of such service. The commission, upon its own motion or upon petition of any interested party, may make an order withdrawing from a public utility its authority to engage in business in all or any part of the territory in which it is authorized to operate whenever it shall find, after notice and public hearing, that said utility has declined or unreasonably failed to render service in said territory or that its service in said territory is inadequate, no sufficient reason for such inadequacy appearing.
II. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, the commission may authorize a telephone public utility to permanently discontinue all of its service and remove the equipment essential to the same if the telephone public utility serves fewer than 10 customers; provided that the features of basic service, as defined in RSA 374:22-p, I(b), are available to the current customers from at least one other provider at the time of the discontinuance.
2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.