Illinois General Assembly Updates Telecom Act
The Illinois General Assembly voted to extend sunset dates for its Telecommunications Act, Video and Cable Competition Law and Emergency Telephone Systems Act (see 1505110041) from July 1 this year to July 1, 2017. The bill is awaiting signature by the governor. Amendments three and four of SB-0096 maintain safe harbor landline phone packages for current customers and new customers who meet a means test. It also expands an equipment program that provides gear to individuals with hearing and speech impairments to allow wireless customers to participate. For video and cable providers, the bill would extend the sunset for state-issued licenses for five years.
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Organizations such as AARP Illinois praise the passage of the legislation because they said it allows 1 million Illinois households to maintain access to traditional copper wire, landline phones for another two years, allowing consumers to transition toward new technologies. Landlines are lifelines for hundreds of thousands of older adults, working families, rural households and individuals on medical devices who require access to a traditional landline, said Bob Gallo, state director, AARP Illinois. An AARP Illinois spokesman told us that the extension gives enough time to let technology improve and be able to handle some of the tasks that landlines can handle. While technology is not an enemy for AARP or its members, the organization has some technology concerns, he said. "It's a matter of technology doing what it promises to do," he said. "Technology's promise is that it will meet our needs and that's not exactly the case at this point and that's why consumers need to have that extra time so that technology can make those improvements."
On the flip side, Todd Maisch, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said the legislation isn't exactly what the Illinois Partnership for the New Economy & Jobs hoped for. The partnership is a coalition working to help fuel the state's economy and help create jobs by updating this year what it calls the state’s outdated and expiring communications laws, said the organization's website. While the General Assembly acknowledged that the technology the law backs is outdated, it kept things pretty much the same for the next two years, Maisch said. He said he's hoping to bring the issue up again in the 2016 legislative session, but if it doesn't pass it's comforting to know that the telecom act will be revisited again in 2017. "What the coalition was asking for was never to turn off the old copper wire system tomorrow; it was going to be a significant period of time before the transition was made," Maisch said. "So the two were not incompatible; we could have had legislation to address it this year but at the same time, provide a little more time for people to transition to the new technologies."
The extension of the current act would maintain the status quo long enough for the legislature and the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to examine the current telecom oversight process and craft a bill that addresses consumer issues as the IP transition moves forward, said Sherry Lichtenberg, National Regulatory Research Institute principal researcher-telecom.
Also addressed by the amendments in SB-96 are next generation 911 and overhaul and surcharges for updating the service. The bill would transfer 911 oversight from the ICC to the Illinois State Police and create a Division of 911 headed by a 911 administrator appointed by the governor. The administrator would work toward a statewide NG-911 system by July 2020, and be assisted by an advisory board. The bill also encourages consolidation of 911 systems.
Before SB-96, there were Illinois counties doing NG-911 on their own and more than 300 public safety answering points in the state, which was determined to be less efficient than it could be, said Marci Elliott, ICC 911 program manager. Now that the state's 911 advisory board has taken a look at the way the system runs within the state and the legislation passed, the state police can take over and a number of things can happen, said Elliott. One of those major changes is the switch from locally run 911 to a state-run 911 system. "There was no state plan to implement a next generation 911 system, so this legislation will do that for the state of Illinois," she said. "It will transition from the telephony based 911 to an IP-based 911 system, which will allow for it to not only receive calls, but also texts and video."
The bill also would increase 911 surcharges, which will be used to pay for network costs, fund and upgrade 911 systems, reimburse consolidation costs, and pay the costs associated with setting up a statewide NG-911 system. Surcharges for 911 outside of Chicago would be consolidated into a uniform 87-cent monthly charge for wireless and wireline/landline. Wireless customers would see an increase of 14 cents from the current statewide charge of 73 cents. For prepaid wireless services, the 911 surcharge would increase from 1.5 percent to 3 percent. Chicago would continue to set its wireless and wireline/landline surcharge no higher than the current $3.90. Prepaid wireless will continue to pay a 9 percent charge in Chicago.