Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and the customer is known as a "local loop", and is owned by the incumbent local exchange carrier. To increase competition, other providers are granted unbundled access.
A common carrier in common law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport. A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. The regulatory body has usually been granted "ministerial authority" by the legislation that created it. The regulatory body may create, interpret, and enforce its regulations upon the common carrier with independence and finality, as long as it acts within the bounds of the enabling legislation.
In telecommunications, a customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) is any terminal and associated equipment located at a subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunication circuit at the demarcation point ("demarc"). The demarc is a point established in a building or complex to separate customer equipment from the equipment located in either the distribution infrastructure or central office of the communications service provider.
In telephony, interface functionality is the characteristic of interfaces that allows operators to support transmission, switching, and signaling functions identical to those used in the enhanced services provided by the carrier.
In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the users of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-and-keep," or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
Enhanced 911, E-911 or E911 is a system used in North America to automatically provide the caller's location to 911 dispatchers. 911 is the universal emergency telephone number in the region. In the European Union, a similar system exists known as E112 and known as eCall when called by a vehicle.
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The Telecommunications policy in the US is a framework of law directed by government and the Regulatory Commissions, most notably the Federal Communications Commission. Two landmark acts prevail today, the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The latter was intended to revise the first act and specifically to foster competition in the telecommunications industry.
An incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) is a local telephone company which held the regional monopoly on landline service before the market was opened to competitive local exchange carriers, or the corporate successor of such a firm. In much of the United States, these were originally Bell System companies, although various regional independents in the US held incumbent monopolies in their respective regions.
Local number portability (LNP) for fixed lines, and full mobile number portability (FMNP) for mobile phone lines, refers to the ability of a "customer of record" of an existing fixed-line or mobile telephone number assigned by a local exchange carrier (LEC) to reassign the number to another carrier, move it to another location, or change the type of service. In most cases, there are limitations to transferability with regards to geography, service area coverage, and technology. Location Portability and Service Portability are not consistently defined or deployed in the telecommunication industry.
In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging to its customer, or to a connection between two carriers.
National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 U.S. 967 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared in a 6–3 decision that the administrative law principle of Chevron deference to statutory interpretations by administrative agencies tasked with executing the statute trumped the precedents of the United States Courts of Appeals unless the Court of Appeals had held that the statute was "unambiguous" under Chevron. The Supreme Court therefore upheld the Federal Communications Commission's determination that a cable Internet provider is an "information service", and not a "telecommunications service" and as such competing internet service providers (ISPs) like Brand X Internet were denied access to the cable and phone wires to provide home users with competing internet service.
IP exchange or (IPX) is a telecommunications interconnection model for the exchange of IP based traffic between customers of separate mobile and fixed operators as well as other types of service provider, via IP based Network-to-Network Interface. IPX is developed by the GSM Association.
The Second Computer Inquiry is the second proceeding in the FCC trilogy The Computer Inquiries, which created the FCC's policy of regulating the way in which telecommunications carriers' networks are opened up and made available to enhanced services. The proceeding reformed the First Computer Inquiry which established the policy objectives that telecommunications carriers which have market power and the ability to discriminate be regulated, and computer services which were competitive, innovative, and had low barriers to entry, would not be regulated. The FCC saw great promise in the computer services industry and sought to ensure that the telecommunications network was adequately meeting the needs of the computer market. In the Second Computer Inquiry, the FCC created the basic service versus enhanced service dichotomy. Broadly speaking, the FCC concluded that basic telecommunications carriers networks must be open, and, if a telecommunications carrier offers enhanced services, it must do so through a separate corporate subsidiary. Everything that the telecommunications carrier sold to its own enhanced service, must be sold to all other enhanced services on the same terms and conditions. The FCC also restricted the ability of telecommunications carriers to bundle telecommunications services with customer premises equipment (CPE), creating a new competitive market for telephones and modems. These rules were generally codified in Section 64.702 of the Federal Communications Commission's Rules and Regulation.
Total element long-run incremental cost (TELRIC) is a calculation method that the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to use to charge competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) for interconnection and colocation, effectively imposing a price ceiling. A variant of long-run incremental cost (LRIC), it "measures the forward-looking incremental cost of adding or subtracting a network element" from a hypothetical system. This allows the incumbent to recover a share of the fair value of their inputs in the long run.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission Computer Inquiries were a trio of interrelated FCC Inquiries focused on problems posed by the convergence of regulated telephony with unregulated computing services. These Computer Inquiries created rules and requirements designed to prevent cross subsidization, discrimination, and anti-competitive behavior from companies such as Bell Operating Companies (BOCs) to enter the enhanced services market.
Net bias is the counter-principle to net neutrality, which indicates differentiation or discrimination of price and the quality of content or applications on the Internet by ISPs. Similar terms include data discrimination and network management.
NobelTel, LLC is a wholesale telecom carrier division founded in 2003 by Thomas Knobel, a young entrepreneur from Switzerland. NobelTel operates a TDM/VoIP network and supplies minutes to international carriers, thus being the underlying carrier for several online phone card sites owned by Nobel. The division also buys and sells routes throughout the world. Currently NobelTel's interconnection network consists of over 400 active carrier interconnections and continues to expand.
