The Public Service Commission of West Virginia announced on Friday that all utilities and cable companies, excluding motor carriers, must implement text and email messaging to inform customers about planned and unplanned service outages.
The Commission instructed these companies to collect updated contact information from their customers to facilitate this communication.
Affected utilities are required to notify customers about outages via both text and email, and they must submit a response to this directive within 60 days.
This order follows an investigation that began on April 8, aimed at understanding how utilities and cable TV providers communicate outages to their customers. A task force was established on May 22 to examine the issue and submitted its final report on July 31.
The investigation found that companies currently use various methods to inform customers about outages.
The Commission expects all non-motor carrier utilities and cable TV service providers in West Virginia to quickly provide outage notifications for both planned and unplanned service interruptions, the order stated.
The Commission believes that these providers should be able to utilize text messages and emails to notify affected customers who have shared their contact information.
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