03-08-1995 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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$UMMARY OF THE MINNESOTA EMERGING COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1995 I. WHY WE NEED NEW COMMUNICATIONS LEGISLATION • Minnesota communications policy has evolved over this century in direct response to rapidly changing advances in the communications industry. Current Minnesota statutes which govern communications services have traditionally been associated with providers, as well as services. Statute section 237 is associated with telephone companies and "plain old telephone service" ( "POTS ") and section 238 is associated with cable companies and "plain old cable service" ( "POCS "). As new services and technologies have rapidly developed, traditional providers of either telephone or cable service now have the ability to offer the services of the other. Moreover, telephone and cable providers are now offering services which are not POTS or POCS. • New legislation is needed because of the new services which we refer to as . "emerging communications services" provided by cable operators, telephone companies and other companies. When telephone service and cable service were new to Minnesota, appropriate legislation was enacted to regulate each of those services. Now that we have emerging communications services, we need a new statute section to encourage the development of emerging communications services throughout the state, to assure the continued regulation of current services and to protect the investment already made by the public in current communications services. • New legislation will address all providers of emerging communications services who utilize public property and public rights -of -way to construct, operate, maintain, offer or deliver such services. B. WHAT THE LEGISLATION SAYS 375539 A. OVERVIEW • Creates a new statute Minn. Stat. § 237A, which will regulate emerging communications services. • Applies only to services which are not regulated as "POTS" or "POCS" under Minnesota Statutes sections 237 and 238 (both amended to clearly delete all but "POTS" and "POCS "). The services governed by the new statute section are called "emerging communications services." - 1 - Page 42