Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act: Next Generation 911.

Existing law, the Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act, generally imposes a surcharge on amounts paid by every person in the state for intrastate telephone communication service and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service that provides access to the 911 emergency system. Under the act, the surcharge is imposed at a percentage rate not less than 0.5% nor more than 0.75% of those charges that the Office of Emergency Services annually estimates, pursuant to a specified formula, will produce sufficient revenue to fund the current fiscal year's 911 costs, including the costs it expects to incur to plan, test, implement, and operate Next Generation 911 technology and services, as specified. Existing law requires amounts to be paid to the state pursuant to the Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act to be deposited into the State Emergency Telephone Number Account and that the amounts deposited, upon appropriation by the Legislature, be spent solely for specified purposes, including payment for the installation of, and ongoing expenses for, a basic system, defined to be 911 systems, including, but not limited to, Next Generation 911 and the subsequent technologies and interfaces needed to deliver 911 voice and data information from the 911 caller to the emergency responder and the subsequent technologies and interfaces needed to send information to potential 911 callers, as provided. This bill would require that the vendor for any Next Generation 911 systems and subsequent technologies be based in the United States.