Cell phone bills to go up in West Virginia
According to a release Thursday from the Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia, the wireless enhanced 911 (WE911) fee in West Virginia will increase by 10.2 percent in July, going from $3.64 to $4.01. On top of that, wireless providers will begin to collect a $0.08 wireless tower fee and a $0.29 public safety wireless fee, both of which will be shown separately on customers' bills.
In total, customers will see their 911 fees jump from $3.64 to $4.38.
All of West Virginia under Air Quality Alert Thursday
So what do these funds do?
The funds from these new fees are designed to go toward improving and operating 911 and emergency phone services, the release said. The PSC collects the fees through wireless service providers, but the funds are redistributed to counties.
The WE911 fee can be recalculated every two years based on costs that county commissions impose on local exchange and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users, which is known as the enhanced 911 fee. If the enhanced 911 fee goes up by a certain percentage, the WE911 fee is set to match it.
In March 2025, the PSC voted to increase the enhanced 911 fee by 10.17 percent, meaning that the WE911 fee has now been raised to match, rounding to the nearest penny. According to the West Virginia State Code, the fee can never increase by more than 25% at a time.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
West Virginia athletic department agrees to partnership with local mulch company
On the same day Kansas received a record-breaking $300 million donation, one of the Jayhawks' Big 12 counterparts secured a deal of its own. West Virginia has agreed to a multi-year partnership with Grant County Mulch that makes the company the official mulch supplier of the Mountaineers' athletic department, the university announced August 13. Based in Petersburg, West Virginia, about 90 miles southeast of West Virginia's Morgantown campus, Grant County Mulch is the largest bulk mulch supplier in the country, according to the Mountaineers' release. As part of the newly inked and undeniably unique agreement — after all, how many colleges have an official mulch supplier? — Grant County Mulch will be racing a West Virginia-themed truck in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at the Richmond Raceway in Virginia on August 15. The truck is owned by CR7 Motorsports and will be driven by Grant Enfinger. Beyond the company's logo being displayed on LED boards at football and basketball games, as well as on the outfield wall at baseball games, the Mountaineers' post-game radio show for football and men's basketball will award a 'Tough as Mulch' player of the game. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. "Both of us — and our parents — were born and raised in West Virginia, so this partnership means more than business to us," Larry and Janie Berg, founders of Grant County Mulch, said in a statement. "It's about honoring our roots, supporting our home state, and being part of something that represents the pride and spirit of West Virginians everywhere."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
New Gas-Fired Power Stations Planned for North and South Dakota
Regulators in North Dakota have given their approval for a 1,490-MW natural gas-fired power plant, a combined-cycle station that Basin Electric Power Cooperative officials said would provide the area with its first new baseload electric output in more than four decades. South Dakota utility commissioners, meanwhile, are set to consider an application for a smaller, 145-MW gas-fired facility in that state. The North Dakota Public Service Commission on August 7 said the Bison Generation Station project, representing an investment of nearly $4 billion, would be built near Eppling in the northwestern part of the state. It will feature two, 745-MW units, and be built in two phases. The first unit is expected online in 2029, with the second entering commercial operation the following year. Officials have said the Bison station, which was first announced in January of this year, will use natural gas produced in North Dakota, with officials noting it will support the state's oil and gas industry. [caption id="attachment_239283" align="alignnone" width="640"] This is a rendering of the 1,490-MW Bison Generation Station planned near Eppling, North Dakota. Source: Basin Electric[/caption] Missouri River Energy Services (MRES), meanwhile, on August 7 announced the utility had applied to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission for permission to build the $378-million Toronto Power Plant, a 145-MW gas-fired station in Deuel County in the northeastern part of that state. The project would include four combustion turbine-generators, along with a new 4.9-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line. It will source natural gas from an existing gas pipeline, and connect to a substation with access to the regional power grid. Officials with MRES said the site was chosen due to its proximity to existing transmission and fuel supply infrastructure. With regulatory approval, construction would begin in spring 2027, with commercial operation expected by year-end 2029. 'As our public power communities continue to grow, along with their energy consumption, we're taking proactive steps to ensure reliability and affordability,' said Terry Wolf, vice president and chief operating officer at MRES. 'The Toronto Power Plant will provide flexible, fast-start generation that complements the needs of the regional grid today, which helps us deliver reliable power to our municipal electric utilities.' Data Centers in North Dakota Basin Electric officials earlier this year said the Bison project was not specifically developed in an effort to attract data center operators to the area, but regulators also have acknowledged the new power plant could support load from that energy-intensive industry. Basin Electric has developed a program to that would enable the utility to serve large-load customers such as data centers. Basin Electric said the Bison project is one of the largest in the co-op's history. Benjamin Hertz, manager of power supply planning for Basin Electric, at a June hearing in front of state regulators said the company needs new generation capacity because it is forecasting higher levels of power use from traditional customers, including the state's oil and gas industry. 'Much of this is due to oil and gas related activity in this region,' Hertz said at the June 30 hearing. The utility said it has developed its "Large Load Program" in collaboration with its membership. Officials said the program is "designed to ensure that the costs and risks associated with serving new large electric loads are not passed on" to the co-op's current members. "Some of the key benefits for the development of the large load commercial program are to allow Basin Electric to flexibly serve new large loads in a manner that does not cause undue rate pressure on the membership," Dan Gallagher, vice president of Commercial Operations, said in late June, after the program was approved by Basin Electric's board of directors. "Additionally, this program will ensure that stranded asset risk associated with building new resources is mitigated." —Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
E&E News
4 days ago
- E&E News
Florida regulators agree to halt utility rate case hearing
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — State regulators on Monday agreed to delay a hearing on Florida Power & Light's $2.5 billion rate hike request after the company and several commercial customer groups announced a preliminary deal last week. Details: The Office of Public Counsel and energy justice groups are not part of the deal and opposed delaying the two-week hearing that was set to start Monday. But those groups appeared to soften their stance after members of the Public Service Commission said they shared legal due process concerns. Settlement details were not released Friday by FPL or the commercial groups joining in, including the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Industrial Power Users Group and the new Florida Energy for Innovation Association representing data center developers. FPL said the agreement will be filed no later than Aug. 20. Advertisement Lawyers representing the utility and groups involved in the deal said delaying the hearing would avoid awkward or inaccurate sworn testimony this week on details of a rate request that may substantially change.
