56-234 - Duty to furnish adequate service at reasonable and uniform rates.
§ 56-234. Duty to furnish adequate service at reasonable and uniform rates.
It shall be the duty of every public utility to furnish reasonably adequateservice and facilities at reasonable and just rates to any person, firm orcorporation along its lines desiring same. It shall be their duty to chargeuniformly therefor all persons, corporations or municipal corporations usingsuch service under like conditions. However, no provision of law shall bedeemed to preclude voluntary rate or rate design tests or experiments, orother experiments involving the use of special rates, where such experimentshave been approved by order of the Commission after notice and hearing and afinding that such experiments are necessary in order to acquire informationwhich is or may be in furtherance of the public interest. The charge for suchservice shall be at the lowest rate applicable for such service in accordancewith schedules filed with the Commission pursuant to § 56-236. But, subjectto the provisions of § 56-232.1, nothing contained herein or in § 56-481.1shall apply to (i) schedules of rates for any telecommunications serviceprovided to the public by virtue of any contract with, (ii) for any serviceprovided under or relating to a contract for telecommunications serviceswith, or (iii) contracts for service rendered by any telephone company to,the state government or any agency thereof, or by any other public utility toany municipal corporation or to the state or federal government. Theprovisions hereof shall not apply to or in any way affect any proceedingpending in the State Corporation Commission on or before July 1, 1950, andshall not confer on the Commission any jurisdiction not now vested in it withrespect to any such proceeding.
(Code 1919, § 4066; 1918, p. 675; 1924, p. 540; 1927, p. 125; 1950, p. 55;1964, c. 195; 1970, c. 258; 1976, c. 290; 1985, cc. 2, 41; 2002, c. 833.)