Backhaul

A high capacity inland circuit used to connect a submarine cable landing station and an operator's existing domestic infrastructure.

Baseball-style Arbitration

Negotiations in which arbitrators choose a "best and final offer" from one party. This method is thought by proponents to encourage parties to moderate their positions, as holding steadfastly to an extreme position may prompt arbitrators to select the comparatively moderate approach put forth by the other party.

Basic Service

US: A telecommunications service that serves only to transport a subscriber's information through a network from point of origin to point of destination without change in its format, content, code, or protocol. The FCC regulates inter-state and international basic services provided by common carriers.

Basic Service Element (BSE)

US: A component of the 'Common Open Network Architecture (ONA) Model' which had been developed by the Bell Operating Companies and approved by the FCC in 1988.

BSEs are optional unbundled network features, such as calling number identification, that an enhance service provider (i.e., information service provider) may require or find useful in configuring an enhanced service. Network features that the BOCs describe as BSEs are generally resident in the stored-program-controlled switch located in a carrier's local switching office.

Software packages in the switch make these functionalities available to enhanced service providers and to end-users. [See also Ancillary Network Service (ANS); Basic Serving Arrangement (BSA); Complementary Network Service (CNS); enhanced service; information service; Open Network Architecture (ONA);]

Basic Service Tier (BST)

US: Under cable television regulation, BST is a package of cable television programming that a subscriber must purchase in order to have access to any other tier of service. The BST must include all of the local broadcast television stations that the operator offers over its system, plus any public, educational, or government access channels that the operator is required to provide to subscribers under the terms of its franchise. The required components of the BST are specified inSection 623(b)(7)(A) of the Communications Act of 1934. [See also Cable Programming Service Tier.]

Basic Serving Arrangement (BSA)

US: A component of the 'Common Open Network Architecture (ONA) Model' which had been developed by the Bell Operating Companies and approved by the FCC in 1988.

BSAs are the fundamental tariffed switching and transport services that allow an enhanced service provider (i.e., information service provider) to communicate with its customers through the BOC network. Under the common ONA model, an enhanced service provider and its customers must obtain some form of BSA in order to access the network functionalities that it needs to offer specific services. Examples of BSAs include line-side and trunk-side circuit-switched service, line-side and trunk-side packet-switched service, and various grades of local private line service. [See also Ancillary Network Service (ANS); Basic Service Element (BSE); Complementary Network Service (CNS); enhanced service; information service; Open Network Architecture (ONA).]

Bell Operating Company (BOC)

Local telephone companies divested by AT&T in 1984 under the terms of the AT&T Consent Decree and grouped into holding companies to form the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). As specified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Bell Operating Companies include:

Bell Telephone Company of Nevada

Illinois Bell Telephone Company

Indiana Bell Telephone Company

Michigan Bell Telephone Company

New England Telephone and Telegraph Company

New Jersey Bell Telephone Company

New York Telephone Company

U S West Communications Company

South Central Bell Telephone Company

Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company

Southwestern Bell Telephone Company

The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania

The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company

The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland

The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia

The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia

The Diamond State Telephone Company

The Ohio Bell Telephone Company

The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company

Wisconsin Telephone Company

[See also regional bell operating company; CI '96 Act Reference 0(3)(a)(35)]
 


Billed Party Preference (BPP)

US: A billing method applied to telephone calls made from payphones using a calling card. With BPP, operator-assisted long-distance traffic is carried automatically by the operator services provider (OSP) preselected by the party being billed for the call. This is done by permitting a person signing up for a calling card to select the OSP that would carry that customer's inter-state payphone traffic whenever that customer uses the calling card. The network would be able to identify the selected OSP by checking a database listing the chosen OSP associated with each calling card. [see also Operator Services Provider]

Bill of Attainder

US: A legislative act which applies either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a specific group that inflicts punishment without a judicial trial. Bills of attainder are specifically prohibited by the US Constitution in order to safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or "trial by legislature."

Bluetooth

US: A protocol for connecting multiple wireless devices without cable within a range of about 10 meters using unlicensed spectrum in the 2.45 GHz band.


Broadband

Europe: A term applied to high speed telecommunications systems, eg those capable of simultaneously supporting multiple information formats such as voice, high-speed data services and video services on demand.

COM(1999)539

US: The FCC defines broadband as the capability of supporting, in both the provider-to-consumer (downstream) and the consumer-to-provider (upstream) directions, a speed (in technical terms, 'bandwidth') in excess of 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in the last mile. This rate is approximately four times faster than the Internet access received through a standard phone line at 56 kbps.

Broadband Commercial Mobile Radio Service (Broadband CMRS)

US: A term used by the FCC to refer to any of the following mobile telecommunications services:

1) Cellular Telephone Service;

2) Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) Service; and

3) Broadband Personal Communications Services (PCS);

which are provided for profit to the public and interconnected with the public switched telecommunications network. (see also CMRS and separate definitions of these three components of Broadband CMRS)

Broadband Personal Communications Services (Broadband PCS)

A commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) that encompasses a variety of mobile and portable radio services, using such devices as small, lightweight, multifunction portable phones, portable fax machines, and advanced devices with two-way data capabilities that are competing with existing cellular, paging and other land mobile services. Broadband PCS operate in the 1850-1890 MHz, 1930-1970 MHz, 2130-2150 MHz, and 2180-2200 MHz radio frequency bands that provide services to individuals and businesses and can be integrated with a variety of competing networks. (see 47 C.F.R. § 24.5) (see also Narrowband PCS)


 

Broadcast Auxiliary Microwave Stations (BAS)

Stations used for relaying broadcast television signals from the broadcast studio to the transmitter, or between two points, such as a main studio and an auxiliary studio, including mobile TV pickups that relay signals from a remote location back to the studio.