State Representative Cliff Rosenberger (R-Clarksville) has announced that the Ohio House of Representatives passed Substitute House Bill 360, which revises the amount and methods of collections and remittance of the wireless 9-1-1 charge for prepaid wireless services, to take effect in 2013.

Under current Ohio law, the E911 prepaid wireless 9-1-1 fee is authorized to be collected using a point of sale method, but the law falls short of actually establishing the method and has resulted in a confusing situation for consumers. House Bill 360 creates a framework to collect a fair point of sale method for the collection of the prepaid wireless 9-1-1 fee, which will help customers have confidence in their wireless service and the fees associated with that service. The legislation would not change the expense of the wireless service, only the vehicle of collection by charging the prepaid customer directly, similar to monthly customers.

“This legislation will reduce customer confusion and provide greater accuracy in the amount being collected from Ohio’s prepaid wireless subscribers,” said Representative Rosenberger, the sponsor of the legislation. “The point of sale method created in this legislation has already been adopted in 23 other states. This legislation takes Ohio’s consumers from collection methods that are estimated and non-transparent to methods that are fully transparent and based on actual transactions.”

House Bill 360 strives to simplify an unclear Ohio law that states that wireless providers have three methods for collecting and remitting the prepaid wireless surcharge: providers can use a calculation that estimates the number of customers using their prepaid service and then remit payment to the E911 fund at the end of the end of each cycle; providers can deduct minutes from the prepaid service plan; providers can deduct money from the balance of the prepaid service plan. In contrast, monthly wireless subscribers are simply billed $0.28 per month for the E911 fund.

House Bill 360 passed unanimously from the House and will now be sent to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.

Watch Representative Rosenberge discuss the bill: