US: The marketing of property, goods, or services by telephone to a customer or potential customer who initiated the call. [See also CI '96 Act Reference I(151)(274)(i)(07)]
US: InterLATA services originating within a Bell Operating Company's (BOC) region that the BOCs were permitted to offer immediately upon passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
In general, the ' 96 Act requires a BOC to meet specified requirements, including compliance with a 14 point "competitive checklist" prior to receiving FCC authorization to provide interLATA services originating within its operating territory.
However, these requirements do not apply to specifically defined "incidental" interLATA service which the BOCs could provide immediately, including, for example: the interLATA provision of audio programming, video programming, or other programming services; the capability for interaction by subscribers to select or respond to such programming; alarm monitoring services; two-way interactive video services or Internet services over dedicated facilities to or for elementary and secondary schools; some commercial mobile services; service that permits a customer that is located in one LATA to retrieve stored information from another; signaling information used in connection with the provision of telephone exchange services or exchange access by a local exchange carrier; or network control signaling information under specified configurations. [See also CI '96 Act Reference I(151)(271)(g)(1) and following references.]
Europe:Incremental Cost is a cost standard which measures the change in total cost arising from a discrete or substantial increase/decrease in output (i.e. serving service). COM(96)608
US:Incremental costs are the additional costs (usually expressed as a cost per unit) that a firm will incur as a result of expanding the output of a good or service by producing an additional quantity of the good or service. (CC Docket 96-98)
US: A local telephone company. A local exchange carrier (LEC) is a telephone company that provides local telephone service, which consists of telephone exchange service and exchange access service. 'incumbent' local exchange carriers (ILECs), are those LECs that were operating and providing services on the date of enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The '96 Act imposes certain requirements on ILECs, not imposed upon other LECs (i.e., new market entrants, also referred to as 'CLECs' meaning 'competitive local exchange carrier) or other telecommunications carriers. These requirements include, e.g., the duty: to negotiate in good faith with new entrants for interconnection with their networks; to provide nondiscriminatory access to unbundled network elements; to offer for resale at wholesale rates any telecommunications service that the carrier provides at retail to subscribers; and, to provide competitors physical (or virtual) collocation of their equipment necessary for interconnection) [See also CI '96 Act Reference I(101)(251)(h)(1)]
US: An industry body that provides an open forum to address and resolve industry-wide issues associated with the non-policy-related planning, administration, allocation, assignment, and use of numbering resources within the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) area.
US: A long-term lease, generally 10 to 20 years, of bandwidth capacity on an international cable offered by the cable owner to telecommunications operators who seek to ensure access to the capacity on a long-term basis. 'Indefeasible' means that the right of use can not be voided or canceled by any past event, error or omission in the title.
US: As used in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the term 'information content provider' means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service. [See also CI '96 Act Reference V(509)(230)(e)(3)]
US: As defined by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 'information service' means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service. [See also CI '96 Act Reference 0(3)(a)(41)]
vAn FCC authorized 'wireless' cable TV service operated by an educational organization and intended primarily for the transmission of instructional and cultural material to specified receive sites for the formal education of students enrolled in accredited public and private schools, colleges and universities.
US: A 'smart' payphone containing all circuitry required to execute coin acceptance and related functions within the instrument itself and not requiring coin service signaling from the local exchange carrier's central switching office. (Compare Central-Office Implemented Payphone)
A service which permits digital transmission over ordinary local loops through the use of advanced hardware and software. Most incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) currently offer two types of ISDN service, Basic Rate Interface (BRI) service and Primary Rate Interface (PRI) service. BRI service allows a subscriber to obtain two voice-grade-equivalent channels (at speeds up to 64 kbps each) and a signaling/data channel (at 16 kbps) over an ordinary local loop, which generally is provided over a single twisted pair of copper wires. PRI service allows subscribers to obtain 23 voice-grade-equivalent channels and one data signaling channel over two pairs of twisted copper wires.
US: As used in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the term 'interactive computer service' means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions. [See also CI '96 Act Reference V(509)(230)(e)(2)]
US: A radio-based interactive short-distance communications service (point-to-multipoint, multipoint-to-point) in which licensees may provide information or services to individual subscribers at locations within a service area, and subscribers may provide responses. IVDS may be delivered by, and coordinated with, broadcast television, cable television, multichannel multipoint distribution services (MMDS), direct broadcast satellite (DBS) services, or any other future television delivery technology. By itself the service is not capable of delivering voice or full-motion video. Among the types of services IVDS licensees may offer, in conjunction with video or data delivery systems, are polls, educational classes, home banking, and home shopping. The FCC awarded 18 IVDS licenses by a lottery in 1993 and auctioned an additional 594 licenses in 1994. Each license permits service within a specified service area, which is equivalent to a cellular radio service area.
US: A nonrecurring charge levied by an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) intended to recover the costs of readjusting its network to provide interconnection to new local market entrants. New entrants oppose such charges arguing that the costs they are designed to recover are already recovered through rates set for unbundled network elements established through interconnection agreements.
US: In common parlance, a 'long distance' telephone company that provides services originating in one local telephone (exchange) area and terminating in another. A local telephone (exchange) area is essentially equivalent to a LATA (local access and transport area), the geographic areas established under the 1982 Modification of Final Judgement (MFJ) within which bell operating companies (BOCs) are authorized to provide services. The MFJ also prohibits the BOCs from providing 'interexchange' services (services between LATAs), the market inhabited by the IXCs.
US: Telecommunications between a point located within a given local access and transport area (LATA) and a point located outside that area. Under the terms of the 1982 Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ), the bell operating companies were prohibited from providing interLATA services, a prohibition that was subsequently removed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. [See also CI '96 Act Reference 0(3)(a)(42)]
International public switched telephone service.
US: IMT-2000 refers to 'third generation' mobile wireless telecommunications systems that are capable of providing a wide range of services (e.g., multimedia, video-teleconferencing, high speed Internet, speech and high rate data transmission) over a wide range of environments (indoor, pedestrian, vehicular, urban and rural, including global roaming capabilities) and allow the integration of both terrestrial and satellite-based mobile wireless services. Spectrum requirements for IMT-2000 were a major topic of discussion at WRC-2000, the World Radiocommunication Conference, convened by the International Telecommunication Union from May 8 to June 2, 2000.
US: An FCC policy, originally established in 1986, which applies to competing U.S. carriers in their bilateral accounting rate negotiations with monopoly foreign carriers. The policy requires: (1) the equal division of accounting rates; (2) non-discriminatory treatment of U.S. carriers; and (3) proportionate return of inbound traffic. The ISP is intended to prevent foreign monopolies from using their market power to obtain discriminatory accounting rate concessions from competing U.S. carriers (i.e., "Whipsawing").
The provision of switched telephone service over international 'private' lines which are leased from a facilities-based carrier and interconnected to the public switched network in both countries. [see also International Simple Resale - Equivalency Requirement]
US: International Simple Resale (ISR) entails the provision of switched telephone service over international 'private' lines which are leased from a facilities-based carrier and interconnected to the public switched network (PSN) in both countries. Under the FCC's 'equivalency' requirement for such services, companies who apply for authority to offer ISR must demonstrate to the FCC that the country at the foreign end of the private line affords US carriers international resale opportunities equivalent to those available under US law. (ISR is a convenient term widely used in Europe, especially the UK.
The FCC generally does not use this term per se in its official documents, preferring instead the equivalent phrase 'switched services over private lines.')
The equivalency policy applied to all countries until February 1998 when revised FCC rules took effect. (The rules were revised to bring the US into compliance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on basic telecommunications.) Under the revised rules, the FCC will authorize ISR between the US and a WTO member country if the settlement rates for at least 50 percent of the settled US-billed traffic between the US and that country are at or below the FCC's settlement rate 'benchmark' for that country OR if the country satisfies the 'equivalency' test described above. For non-WTO member countries, the pervious sentence applies with the OR changed to AND. [see also settlement rate, Settlement Rate Benchmarks, WTO Agreement On Basic Telecommunications]
Europe:Data communications network based on the Internet protocol TCP/IP. TCP/IP was developed as a US military computer based communications standard which has over recent years met great success in academic and later in commercial applications - particularly for internetworking among different LAN environments and servers.
US:As used in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the term `Internet' is defined to mean the international computer network of both Federal and non-Federal interoperable packet switched data networks. [See also CI '96 Act Reference V(509)(230)(e)(1)]
A technology that separates Internet service providers' data traffic from ordinary voice telephone traffic and routes it over high-speed packet-switched transport connections. It is designed to alleviate some of the load placed on the public switched telephone network by Internet traffic without having to build additional capacity into the voice telephone network.
IP is a routing protocol that defines the structure of data, or 'packets,' transmitted over the Internet. The higher-level 'transmission control protocol'(TCP) and the 'user-defined protocol' (UDP) are transport protocols that control the transmission of these packets across networks. Most Internet services use TCP, and therefore the Internet is often referred to as a TCP/IP network. The IP protocol separates new services and applications development from the transmission and switching of the digital bits, so that new services can be introduced without affecting the Internet.
US: Also called 'transport', interoffice transmission facilities are one of six unbundled network elements (UNEs) that incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) are required by FCC rules under the '96 Act to provide individually, or in combination with other UNEs, to new entrants seeking to provide competitive local telephone service. Interoffice transmission facilities link the switches owned by the ILEC and may be 'dedicated' (used exclusively by a new entrant) or 'shared' (shared by more than one carrier, including the incumbent).
US: A service provided to inter-state long distance carriers by both incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) and new local market entrants (referred to as 'competitive' LECs, of CLECs). The service provided consists of originating and terminating inter-state telephone calls in the local area (i.e., providing the links between the premises of telephone subscribers and their inter-state long distance service providers) .