Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Bill could raise price of prepaid calling plans

A bill set for introduction in the New Mexico House of Representatives could make prepaid calling plans a few cents more expensive.

Senate Bill 46, which passed the Senate 38-4, would add charges to both prepaid wireless plans and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) numbers with the money going to the state’s Enhanced 911 fund. Currently, all calls to 911 use the enhanced system, but program costs are only borne by landline and contract cell phone customers via 51-cent monthly charges.

The measure is expected to raise $3.6 million for the 2018 fiscal year, based on estimates of 217,000 VOIP subscribers and 501,600 prepaid wireless subscribers.

“This is not a tax,” said Sen. Stephen Neville, R-Aztec. “It is a user fee to pay for the E911 service that needs to keep up with ever-changing technology.”

Neville said all phone users should pay for the service, not only the landline and monthly billed cell phone users.

“It is only fair to all of us that all of us pay for this emergency service. E911 centers need to be able to update their technology to be able to do things like texting 911, video to 911 and reverse 911,” he said.

Prepaid customers would pay an estimated 1.38 percent surcharge in advance to benefit the E911 program.

The bill comes as more citizens rely on cell phones, with an estimated 23 percent of mobile consumers using prepaid options.

According to its latest annual report, the Clovis Police Department’s dispatch took in 33,670 calls from cellular phones. That’s up from 20,172 in 2009, the first year mobile calls were tracked in the CPD annual report.

Locally, the bill received a yes vote from both Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, and Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview.

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