Fortnightly Magazine - November 1 1996

Consumer complaints about billings for newly introduced "per-use" services offered by local exchange carriers (LECs) has prompted the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) to direct BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Co., and Central Telephone Co. to improve customer education and offer liberal forgiveness policies for charges associated with the new services.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved a Total Service Long Run Incremental Cost (TSLRIC) study submitted by Pacific Bell, a local-exchange carrier (LEC), for use in pricing bundled and unbundled basic-service network offerings. The CPUC rejected similar studies submitted by GTE California, Inc., finding that the LEC had employed flawed methodologies and that the studies lacked adequate supporting data.

A federal district court in Massachusetts has ruled that it has no jurisdiction to hear a complaint brought by a qualifying cogeneration facility (QF) concerning stranded-cost recovery charges proposed by an electric utility and approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU). (For prior ruling approving the charge, see Re Cambridge Electric Light Co., 164 PUR4th 69 (Mass. D.P.U.

The Kansas State Corporation Commission (SCC) has authorized Western Resources, Inc., a local distribution company (LDC), to raise base rates by $33.85 million, but to refund to ratepayers a portion of its gain on the sale of distribution assets sold to a municipality.

Citing guidelines handed down by the state Court of Appeals in a 1980 ruling (5 Kan App.2d 514), the SCC approved a sharing mechanism that allocates ratepayers 44.4 percent of the gain over a one-year period.