Telecom bills became law in Conn. and Okla. and passed legislatur...

bills that must be paid in order to avoid local service disconnection. Law also: (1) Bars carriers from identifying any charge as tax unless it’s directly assessed on customer by taxing authority. (2) Requires carriers to inform customers in writing when removal or change in any telecom service will cause them to lose discounts or alter their rates and when customers are receiving service under promotional rates and terms of limited duration. (3) Requires notice be given when customers subscribe or change their services and annually after that. (4) Directs state regulators to determine whether all telecom carriers should be compelled to provide customers with advance notice of any rate increases or service changes and what notice period would be appropriate. Okla. Gov. Frank Keating (R) signed bill (SB-963) authorizing local govts. to bill late charges to telecom companies that were late in remitting 911 fees collected from customers. Under new law, which takes effect Nov. 1, telecom carriers that remit fees more than 30 days after close of month in which fees were collected are liable for 10% late charge. Late fee accrues at 10% monthly until collections are remitted. Kan. legislature passed bill (SB-467) to regulate spam. Measure sent to Gov. Bill Graves (R) would require unsolicited e-mail ad messages to include “ADV:” at start of subject line and would prohibit false or misleading information in subject line. Only exception would be where recipient has existing business relationship with sender or has authorized sender to e-mail its ads. Bill also would ban sending spam to recipients who had given notice that they no longer wanted to see sender’s commercial messages. Offenders would face fine up to $10,000 per offending message. Mo. legislature passed bill (HB-1890) to conform state wireless taxation laws to federal Mobile Telecom Sourcing Act. Bill sent to Gov. Bob Holden (D) would make wireless services taxable at subscriber’s place of primary use, typically home or workplace, regardless of where call actually occurred.