05/03/2012

Switched Fixed Access in Service (Thousands)

Source: FCC

The number of fixed telephones in service reached its peak in (192.4 millions) in 2000, since then it's being falling. The CLECs increased until Jun/05 when reached 33.9 million, presenting a fall after that.

Operators of Fixed Telephony

In 1983, AT&T was dismembered in the United States with the creation of AT&T (Long Distance) and seven regional operators of local telephony (RBOCs): Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC) and US West.

These operators, with others such as GTE, are known as "Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers" (ILECs).

With the telecommunication deregulation, that took place in the US, arose the "Competitive Local Exchange Carriers" (CLEC). In 2004, the CLECs had 32 million of access, 57.7% of them were Unbundled, 16.5% retail and 25.9% their own.

The main ILECS are presented in the following table.

Fixed Access in service (thousands)

Source: Operators (Retail, doesn't include accessgranted to other operators to retail or Unbundling)

In Long Distance, besides the operators named above stand out AT&T, Sprint, MCI and Level 3. MCI was acquired by Verizon.