(a) The Company shall employ prudent management, engineering and maintenance practices, including budgeting and prioritizing resources, to assure that sufficient equipment and personnel are available to provide safe, adequate and continuous telecommunications service.
(b) Acceptable standards for the basic elements of telecommunications service, which are technically feasible and economically reasonable to provide safe, adequate and continuous service, include at a minimum, the following: - (i) The Company shall construct, operate and maintain all local access lines used for individual line telecommunications service so that the transmission loss does not exceed 8.5 dB measured at a frequency within 2% of 1,000 Hz (1,000+/-20). Loss is measured at the interface with the Company's network at the customer's network interface device and must account for all losses between the central office and the customer's premises;
- (ii) All local access lines shall receive a minimum of 20 milliamperes of line current into an assumed station resistance of 430 ohms. Total line resistance, excluding station equipment, shall not exceed the basic operational limits of the central office. Range extension equipment shall be applied to customer lines which are longer than the basic working limits of the central office;
- (iii) Local access lines shall be capable of transmission of a bandwidth of 2,700 Hz with a frequency range of 300 Hz to 3,000 Hz;
- (iv) Dual tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF), or its functional equivalent, shall be supported for all access lines;
- (v) Single party telecommunications service shall permit the user to have exclusive use of a wireline subscriber loop or local access line channel for each call placed or, in the case of wireless telecommunications, a dedicated message path for the duration of a user's particular transmission; and
- (vi) Local access lines shall be capable of accessing operator, directory assistance, toll services and emergency (911 and E911 where implemented) telecommunications services.
(c) The Company shall maintain its network so as to minimize customer trouble reports for telecommunications services and shall not exceed five reports per 100 access lines, per month per specific local exchange area for any consecutive three-month period.
(d) This section does not establish a level of telecommunications service quality to be achieved during periods of emergency, catastrophe and natural disaster affecting large numbers of customers, nor shall it apply to extraordinary or abnormal conditions of operation, such as those resulting from work stoppage, civil unrest or force majeure.