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Information about Long Distance

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. 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.

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. Some of these plans can be found on sites like PhoneDog that compare various long distance phone plans, giving consumers useful and timely information.

Terms

  • LEC - Local Exchange Carrier
  • CLEC - Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
  • PIC - Preferred Interexchange Carrier
  • PIC Freeze - A customer's arrangement with the local exchange carrier (local telephone company) to prevent unauthorized changing of their long distance telephone carrier (oral or written). This prevents slamming. This feature is free of charge and many customers don't know they have it, which may cause a new long distance order to be delayed up to several weeks. If you do have a PIC freeze on your line, you must remove it before submitting the long distance order.
  • Telephone slamming - The illegal practice of changing a consumer's telephone service - local (intralata), toll (interlata intra-state), long distance (interlata inter-state), or international - without permission.

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

1. ^ 1951: First Direct-Dial Transcontinental Telephone Call, AT&T. Accessed June 8, 2007. "Nov. 10, 1951: Mayor M. Leslie Downing of Englewood, N.J., picked up a telephone and dialed 10 digits. Eighteen seconds later, he reached Mayor Frank Osborne in Alameda, Calif. The mayors made history as they chatted in the first customer-dialed long-distance call, one that introduced area codes."

See also

External links

Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, this process typically involves the sending of electromagnetic waves by electronic transmitters, but in earlier times telecommunication may have involved the use of
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A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the calling party and the called party.

Information transmission

A telephone call may consist of an ordinary voice transmission using a telephone, a data transmission when the calling party and called party
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telephone numbering plan is a plan for allocating telephone number ranges to countries, regions, areas and exchanges and to non-fixed telephone networks such as mobile phone networks.
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In telephony, the term local call has the following meanings:
  1. Any call using a single switching facility; that is, not traveling to another telephone network;
  2. A telephone call made within a local calling area as defined by the Local exchange carrier;

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A telephone company (or telco) provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications. Most of the largest telcos are or were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies. These monopolies are often referred to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs.
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Competition is the rivalry of two or more parties over something. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which coexist in an environment with limited resources. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, and mates.
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International Calls are made between different countries. The calls are processed by gateway exchanges (switches). The rates for these calls were expensive but are now cheaper due to advances in technology. Originally they were placed via operator.
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The calling party (also called caller, call originator or A-party) is a person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call over the public switched telephone network, usually by dialing a telephone number.
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The called party is a person who (or device that) answers a telephone call. The person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call is the calling party.

In some situations, the called party may number more than one: such an instance is known as a conference call.
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A collect call in the USA and Canada or reverse charge in the UK and other countries (or calling collect) is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense.
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In telephony, the term local call has the following meanings:
  1. Any call using a single switching facility; that is, not traveling to another telephone network;
  2. A telephone call made within a local calling area as defined by the Local exchange carrier;

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Lata or LATA may refer to:
  • Lata Mountain, the highest point in American Somoa.
  • Lata Mangeshkar, an Indian singer
  • LATA, a telecommunications term meaning Local access and transport area
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Lata or LATA may refer to:
  • Lata Mountain, the highest point in American Somoa.
  • Lata Mangeshkar, an Indian singer
  • LATA, a telecommunications term meaning Local access and transport area
  • Lata, Solomon Islands, a town

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Lata or LATA may refer to:
  • Lata Mountain, the highest point in American Somoa.
  • Lata Mangeshkar, an Indian singer
  • LATA, a telecommunications term meaning Local access and transport area
  • Lata, Solomon Islands, a town

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Lata or LATA may refer to:
  • Lata Mountain, the highest point in American Somoa.
  • Lata Mangeshkar, an Indian singer
  • LATA, a telecommunications term meaning Local access and transport area
  • Lata, Solomon Islands, a town

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Lata or LATA may refer to:
  • Lata Mountain, the highest point in American Somoa.
  • Lata Mangeshkar, an Indian singer
  • LATA, a telecommunications term meaning Local access and transport area
  • Lata, Solomon Islands, a town

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A Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC), in the United States, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a "carrier") that competes with other, already established carriers (generally the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC)).
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MCI Communications 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.
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Pioneer Telephone is a privately held company with headquarters in Portland, Maine. It is a facility based telecommunication carrier of long-distance telephone service in the United States.
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MCI, Inc. was an American telecommunications company that was headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia. The corporation was the result of the merger of WorldCom (formerly known as LDDS followed by LDDS WorldCom) and MCI Communications, and used the name
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Pioneer Telephone is a privately held company with headquarters in Portland, Maine. It is a facility based telecommunication carrier of long-distance telephone service in the United States.
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Pioneer Telephone is a privately held company with headquarters in Portland, Maine. It is a facility based telecommunication carrier of long-distance telephone service in the United States.
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Primus (disambiguation) has multiple meanings, generally derived from the Latin word meaning 'the first one'.

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Telephone slamming is an illegal telecommunications practice of changing subscribers' telephone service without their consent. Slamming became a more visible issue after the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the mid-1980s,
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