Sec.16-247g-2. Quality of service standards

(a) Each telecommunications provider, shall meet the following monthly quality of service standards:

(1) Trouble Reports Per Hundred Lines measures customer service trouble reports when customers are isolated from the network, including but not limited to intermittent no dial tone, cross-talk, static noises, error in termination calls, and repeat reports on customer lines that had a prior trouble report cleared within the last 14 calendar days. Service trouble found to be located on the side of network interface including customer premise equipment and subsequent trouble report are excluded from the calculation. Trouble Reports Per Hundred Lines is calculated in terms of customer service trouble reports per 100 working access lines. The minimum standard requirement shall be 2.25.

(2) Maintenance Appointment Met measures service repairs by percentage of customer appointments missed and is calculated by dividing the number of appointments missed by the company by the total number of initial service trouble reports. The minimum standard requirement shall be 90 percent of appointments met.

(3) Installation Appointments Met measures the percentage of missed appointments to the number of service orders. It is calculated by dividing the number of appointments missed by the company by the total number of service orders. The minimum standard requirement shall be 90 percent of appointments met.

(4) Installation Interval standard upon customer request requires 95 percent of all service orders to be completed by the company within 5 business days.

(5) Out of Service Repair standard requires 90 percent of all service repairs received by the company in any given 24-hour period shall be cleared within 24 hours.

(b) No later than January 30 and July 30 of each year, each telecommunications provider shall submit to the department semi-annual reports disaggregated by monthly performance on both a company-wide and wire center or regional levels. Reports of performance below the minimum standard level must be accompanied by a specific explanation of the reasons and the steps necessary to bring performance to an acceptable level. The semi-annual reports shall include, in addition to actual performance data, a summary report of the company's overall past performance segmented by technical services, such as, outside plant, switching, and repair, and by customer services, such as installation, billing and answering time, including the company's plans for future improvement in service quality. Each telecommunications provider shall in preparing such reports, consider comments from its employees or members of collective bargaining units. Such reports filed by a telecommunications provider shall be considered public records as defined in section 1-200 of the General Statutes of Connecticut subject to the exemptions provided in section 1-210 of the General Statutes of Connecticut.

(c) If performance on any standard falls below the minimum level for three consecutive months, the company shall file with the department an exception report no later than 30 days following the end of the period in question. Any exception report filed in such circumstances shall have appended to it an explanation of the reasons for the result and proposed solution, including the steps necessary to bring performance up to the minimum level, and a timetable for such improvement. Each telecommunications provider shall in preparing such reports, consider comments from its employees or members of collective bargaining units. Such reports filed by a telecommunications provider shall be considered public records as defined in Section 1-200 of the General Statutes of Connecticut subject to the exemptions provided in Section 1-210 of the General Statutes of Connecticut.

(d) If a telecommunications provider experiences a service outage that affects either more than ten percent of its access lines or more than 5,000 access lines, for a duration of more than three hours, it shall as soon as possible inform the department and the local police authority by telephone, facsimile or other means of such outage. Such information shall include the cause of the outage, expected duration of the outage, the company's corrective actions, including E-911 and other emergency services availability. The department may require additional information as it deems necessary.

(e) In the case of extraordinary circumstances, emergency situations and for any service standard failure that is beyond the control of the telecommunications provider, the company, upon determination of the department, shall not be held accountable for the failure to achieve the minimum standards.

(Adopted effective November 8, 2000)