4927.03 Exemption orders.

(A)(1) The public utilities commission, upon its own initiative or the application of a telephone company or companies, after notice, after affording the public and any affected telephone company a period for comment, and after a hearing if it considers one necessary, may, by order, exempt any such telephone company or companies, as to any public telecommunications service , including basic local exchange service, from any provision of Chapter 4905. or 4909., or sections 4931.01 to 4931.35 of the Revised Code or any rule or order adopted or issued under those provisions, or establish alternative regulatory requirements to apply to such public telecommunications service and company or companies; provided the commission finds that any such measure is in the public interest and either of the following conditions exists:

(a) The telephone company or companies are subject to competition with respect to such public telecommunications service;

(b) The customers of such public telecommunications service have reasonably available alternatives.

(2) In determining whether the conditions in division (A)(1)(a) or (b) of this section exist, factors the commission shall consider include, but are not limited to:

(a) The number and size of alternative providers of services;

(b) The extent to which services are available from alternative providers in the relevant market;

(c) The ability of alternative providers to make functionally equivalent or substitute services readily available at competitive rates, terms, and conditions;

(d) Other indicators of market power, which may include market share, growth in market share, ease of entry, and the affiliation of providers of services.

(3) To authorize an exemption or establish alternative regulatory requirements under division (A)(1) of this section with respect to basic local exchange service, the commission additionally shall find that there are no barriers to entry. Further, as to an exemption with respect to basic local exchange service, the commission shall not exempt a telephone company from sections 4905.20, 4905.21, 4905.22, 4905.231, 4905.24, 4905.241, 4905.242, 4905.243, 4905.244, 4905.25, 4905.26, 4905.30, 4905.32, 4905.33, 4905.35, and 4905.381 of the Revised Code.

(B) In carrying out this section, the public utilities commission may prescribe different classifications, procedures, terms, or conditions for different telephone companies and for the public telecommunications services they provide, provided they are reasonable and do not confer any undue economic, competitive, or market advantage or preference upon any telephone company.

(C) The public utilities commission has jurisdiction over every telephone company providing a public telecommunications service that has received an exemption or for which alternative regulatory requirements have been established pursuant to this section. As to any such company, the commission, after notice and hearing, may abrogate or modify any order so granting an exemption or establishing alternative requirements if it determines that the findings upon which the order was based are no longer valid and that the abrogation or modification is in the public interest. No such abrogation or modification shall be made more than five years after the date an order granting an exemption or establishing alternative requirements under this section was entered upon the commission’s journal, unless the affected telephone company or companies consent.

(D) The public utilities commission shall adopt such rules as it finds necessary to carry out this section. It shall adopt rules initially implementing the amendment of this section by H.B. No. 218 of the 126th general assembly within one hundred twenty days after the effective date of the amendment. In adopting those rules, the commission shall consider the establishment of elective alternative regulation specific to a telephone company that is an incumbent local exchange carrier as defined in 47 U.S.C. 251(h) having fewer than fifty thousand access lines.

Effective Date: 03-17-1989; 11-04-2005