Local and Long Distance telephone service

KeaneTel provides local and long distance telephone service from the following carriers:

AT&T
ACC Business
Cavalier
Dynalink
Embarq
Ernest
Global Crossing
Level 3
Paetec / McCloud (coming soon)
Qwest
Total Call International / Opex
Verizon Business
Verizon Telecom
XO Communications

Local telephone service is the provision of telecommunications networks and services within a limited geographic region. Traditionally, local telephone service was provided by small companies based in given cities and towns as opposed to larger, national or international companies. When communications outside of the local area provided for by these companies were need, a call was patched through long distance networks that were, until de-regulation, operation mainly by AT&T. Some providers of local services were regional Bell operating companies, but not all local telephone companies were a regional Bell operating company or tied to one at the local level, especially after de-regulation of 1996. After de-regulation, these regional Bell operating companies became known as Local access and transport areas but mainly kept providing the same technical services despite being under a different type of corporate structure.

Many communities in the United States had local telephone companies and in rural areas, up until around the early 1980s (perhaps later in some cases) party lines were commonplace. The local telephone company was responsible for providing equipment alongside services to their customers in most cases although over time, as technology changed, so did the nature of the technical services thus provided. At one time—again mainly in more rural locations—telephones were leased from the local phone company rather than sold outright to customers. Many customers in rural regions had rotary telephones that were leased prior to the 1980s. Rural customers in some instances ended up paying tenfold the value of their phones as they leased them for decades—though the lease system was not set up to encourage this situation. More recently, local telephone companies would provide PBX (Private Branch Exchange) services for small local businesses that needed these switchboard and internal telecommunications services. Local telephone companies have also become very involved in many cases in the provision of Internet DSL and dial-up services.

Local telephone wires terminate at the central office (telephone exchange), a structure containing the hardware needed to switch calls among local lines and long distance networks. Thus, when a call was placed by a customer outside the local calling area, the central office would switch the call to the respective long distance network. As technlogy advanced, central offices offered more services and their technical abilities improved. Services such as Caller ID, call return call-waiting, three-way calling, and voice-mail were first offered via central office-based technology although later PBXs also provided them. The role of the local phone company includes serving a given community and interfacing with the large long distance carriers. Prior to the advent of cell phones, most phone calls were made via landlines and local companies were thereby involved in some capacity in this communication. Deregulation and the culture of cell phones has reduced the need in some ways for local telephone services while Digital subscriber line Internet service and other serivices give local companies new roles in the telecommunications industry.

External links

See also

• Telecommunication
• Telephone
• Telephone exchange
• Regional Bell operating company
• Local access and transport area

Long distance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Long distance in telecommunications, refers to telephone calls made outside a certain area, usually characterized by an area code outside of a local call area (known in the United States as a local access and transport area or LATA). Long-distance calls usually carry long-distance charges which, within certain nations, vary between phone companies and are the subject of much competition. International calls are calls made between different countries, and usually carry much higher charges. These calls are charged to the calling party unless the called party accepts a collect call.

Categories and charges

In the United States, long distance can refer to two different classes of calls that are not local calls. The most common class of long-distance is often called interstate long-distance, though the more accurate term is inter-LATA interstate long distance. This is the form of long-distance most commonly meant by the term, and the one for which long-distance carriers are usually chosen by telephone customers.

Another form of long-distance, increasingly relevant to more U.S. states, is known as inter-LATA intrastate long distance. This refers to a calling area outside of the customer’s LATA but within the customer's state. While technically and legally long-distance, this calling area is not necessarily served by the same carrier used for "regular" long distance, or may be provided at different rates. In some cases, customer confusion occurs as, due to rate or carrier distinctions, a local long-distance call can be billed at a higher per-minute rate than interstate long-distance calls, despite being a shorter distance.

Often, in large LATAs, there is also a class known by the oxymoronic name local long distance, which refers to calls within the customer's LATA but outside of their local calling area. This area is normally served by the customer's local telephone provider, which is usually one of the Baby Bells, despite attempts by some CLECs to compete in the local telephone market.

Callers are usually offered a variety of rate "plans" depending on usage, although which plan is cheapest for a given amount of usage is often not obvious. For example, the largest carrier, AT&T (as of February 2007) offers three plans in the United States: $30 per month for unlimited calling, $10 per month for 120 minutes plus 10 cents per minute thereafter, or $2 per month and 10 cents per minute. Graphing rate vs. usage shows that the $2 per month plan is cheapest if calling 80 minutes or less per month, the $10 per month plan is cheapest if calling 80 to 320 minutes per month, and the $30 per month plan is cheapest if calling over 320 minutes per month. Smaller companies including MCI Inc and Pioneer Telephone may offer plans in similar variety at different prices. Some of these plans can be found on sites like PhoneDog that compare a variety of long distance phone and phone card options, giving consumers useful and timely information.

Carriers and trends

While there have traditionally existed long-distance carriers who provided only long-distance services, today most if not all of the Baby Bells can offer service for all long-distance classes as well as local service, competing with the long-distance carriers. While the benefit of this arrangement is simplicity of billing and support for the customer, long-distance carriers can often offer lower rates or money-saving service plans.

Major long-distance carriers in the US include Sprint, (former) MCI Worldcom, Pioneer Telephone and AT&T. The market security for landline long-distance has been affected negatively by the common trend in with many smaller less known carriers. These would include providers such as Pioneer Telephone, Primus and Power Net Global. These organizations usually provide specialty deep discounted long distance calling plans.

Terms

History

AT&T built an interconnected long-distance telephone network, which reached from New York to Chicago in 1892, the technological limit for the wiring used. Users often did not use their own phone for such connections, but made an appointment to use a special long-distance telephone booth equipped with 4-wire telephones and other advanced technology. The invention of loading coils extended the range to Denver in 1911, again reaching a technological limit. A major research venture and contest led to the development of the audion, which provided the means for telephone signals to reach from coast to coast, which was made possible in 1914, but not showcased until the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. At this time, long distance calling was performed via manual patching by a series of operators in the route of the call; connecting a coast-to-coast call in this way could take up to 23 minutes.

The first customer-connected long-distance telephone call was made on November 11, 1951 when Mayor M. Leslie Downing of Englewood, New Jersey called Mayor Frank Osborne of Alameda, California using AT&T's Direct Distance Dialing feature. This was the first call dialed with an area code, using what would now be called 10-digit dialing, and was connected automatically within 18 seconds.^[1] In addition to area codes, this development also came with the introduction of a national 7-digit standard for local number length.

Until the early 1980s, a called party could instantly recognize an incoming Long Distance call by its hiss and/or low level, due to the inherent signal loss and introduction of noise common with all-analog long-distance telecommunications circuits of the era. The introduction of digital technology such as T-carrier circuits by AT&T starting in 1961 (and adopted by their long distance networks on a larger scale starting in the early-to-mid 1970s) let long distance calls approach the high voice quality of local calls.

References

See also

• AT&T Long Lines
• Long-haul communications
• Trunk vs Toll

External links

• First Transcontinental Telephone Call
• First Direct-Dial Transcontinental Telephone Call
• Slamming Reference
• 1922 Britannica supplement

This page Copyright (c) 2007 Keane Telecom Consulting, LLC.

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