Terms Used In Wisconsin Statutes 196.198

  • Basic local exchange service: includes extended community calling and extended area service. See Wisconsin Statutes 196.01
  • Commission: means the public service commission. See Wisconsin Statutes 196.01
  • Following: when used by way of reference to any statute section, means the section next following that in which the reference is made. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • State: when applied to states of the United States, includes the District of Columbia, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the several territories organized by Congress. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Telecommunications provider: means any person who provides telecommunications services. See Wisconsin Statutes 196.01
  • Telecommunications service: includes switched access service. See Wisconsin Statutes 196.01
  • Telecommunications utility: means any person, corporation, company, cooperative, unincorporated cooperative association, partnership, association and lessees, trustees or receivers appointed by any court that owns, operates, manages or controls any plant or equipment used to furnish telecommunications services within the state directly or indirectly to the public. See Wisconsin Statutes 196.01
   (1)    In this section, “extended community telephone service” means a telecommunications service by which a customer in one exchange may call a customer in another exchange or combination of exchanges under a discounted toll charge plan.
   (2)   Except as provided in sub. (3), a telecommunications utility that has more than 150,000 access lines in use in this state or a telecommunications provider that has more than 150,000 access lines in use in this state may not charge a residential customer for basic local exchange service based on the duration of a call or on the time of day that a call is made. This subsection does not apply to an extended community telephone service.
   (3)   The commission may suspend the application of sub. (2) in a particular geographical area for a telecommunications utility or a telecommunications provider if, after a contested case hearing, the commission determines that all of the following apply:
      (a)    Failure to suspend the application of sub. (2) makes competition in that geographical area impractical.
      (b)    Suspending the application of sub. (2) is beneficial to all of the following groups:
         1.    Residential customers in general.
         2.    Disabled customers.
         3.    Elderly customers.