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USTA V. FCC
''USTA'' ''v.'' ''FCC'' is the 2004 court case in which the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Federal Communications Commission's ''Triennial Review Order'' (TRO). The court's decision is based on the Telecommunications Act of 1996 section 251 which defines unbundled network elements (UNEs) for incumbent local exchange carriers and competitive local exchange carriers.United States Telecom Association, et al. v. FCC & USA (D.C. Cir. 2004) Following the Court of Appeals' decision the FCC requested that the case be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In June 2004 the solicitor general announced that a request for the Supreme Court to review the case would not be made. As a result of the solicitor general's decision the FCC would issue its Triennial Review Remand Order (TRRO) creating new rules and regulations for unbundled network elements. History The Telecommunications Act of 1996 required local incumbent exchange carriers(ILECs) to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate courts, and covers only one district court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It meets at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, near Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C. The D.C. Circuit's prominence and prestige among American federal courts is second only to the U.S. Supreme Court because its geographic jurisdiction contains the U.S. Capitol and the headquarters of many of the U.S. federal government's executive departments and government agencies, and therefore it is the main federal appellate court for many issues of American administrative law and constitutional law. Four of the current nine justices on the Supreme Court were previously judges on the D.C. Circuit including Chief Justice John Roberts, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Loop Unbundling
Local loop unbundling (LLU or LLUB) is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and the customer is known as a "local loop", and is owned by the incumbent local exchange carrier (also referred to as the "ILEC", "local exchange", or in the United States either a "Baby Bell" or an independent telephone company). To increase competition, other providers are granted unbundled access. Policy background LLU is generally opposed by the ILECs, which in most cases are either former investor-owned (North America) or state-owned monopoly enterprises forced to open themselves to competition. ILECs argue that LLU amounts to a regulatory taking, that they are forced to provide competitors with essential business inputs, that LLU stifles infrastructure-based competition and technical innovation because new entrants prefer to 'parasiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MCI Inc
MCI, Inc. (subsequently Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunications companies, including MCI Communications in 1998, and filed bankruptcy in 2002 after an accounting scandal, in which several executives, including CEO Bernard Ebbers, were convicted of a scheme to inflate the company's assets. In January 2006, the company, by then renamed MCI, was acquired by Verizon Communications and was later integrated into Verizon Business. Worldcom was originally headquartered in Clinton, Mississippi before relocating to Ashburn, Virginia when it changed its name to MCI. History Foundation In 1983, in a coffee shop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Bernard Ebbers and three other investors formed Long Distance Discount Services, Inc. based in Jackson, Mississippi and in 1985, Ebbers was named chief executive office ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile telephone services in the U.S. , AT&T was ranked 13th on the ''Fortune'' 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations, with revenues of $168.8 billion. During most of the 20th century, AT&T had a monopoly on phone service in the United States. The company began its history as the American District Telegraph Company, formed in St. Louis in 1878. After expanding services to Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, through a series of mergers, it became Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1920, which was then a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The latter was a successor of the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877. The American Bell Telephone Company formed the American Teleph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DC Circuit Court Of Appeals
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate courts, and covers only one district court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It meets at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, near Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C. The D.C. Circuit's prominence and prestige among American federal courts is second only to the U.S. Supreme Court because its geographic jurisdiction contains the U.S. Capitol and the headquarters of many of the U.S. federal government's executive departments and government agencies, and therefore it is the main federal appellate court for many issues of American administrative law and constitutional law. Four of the current nine justices on the Supreme Court were previously judges on the D.C. Circuit including Chief Justice John Roberts, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landline
A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses radio waves for signal transmission. Characteristics A corded landline telephone made by Siemens from c. 1997 Landline service is typically provided through the outside plant of a telephone company's central office, or wire center. The outside plant comprises tiers of cabling between distribution points in the exchange area, so that a single pair of copper wire, or an optical fiber, reaches each subscriber location, such as a home or office, at the network interface. Customer premises wiring extends from the network interface to the location of one or more telephones inside the premises. The telephone connected to a landline can be hard-wired or cordless and typically refers to the operation of wireless devices or systems in fixed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1996 Telecommunications Act
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, The act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in American telecommunication law, because it was the first time that the Internet was included in broadcasting and spectrum allotment.The Telecommunications Act of 1996. Title 3, sec. 301. Retrieved frofcc.gov (2011) The goal of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." The legislation's primary goal was deregulation of the converging broadcasting and telecommunications markets. The law's regulatory policies have been criticized, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), also known as the "Digital Telephony Act," is a United States wiretapping law passed in 1994, during the presidency of Bill Clinton (Pub. L. No. 103-414, 108 Stat. 4279, codified at 47 USC 1001-1010). CALEA's purpose is to enhance the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct lawful interception of communication by requiring that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that they have built-in capabilities for targeted surveillance, allowing federal agencies to selectively wiretap any telephone traffic; it has since been extended to cover broadband Internet and VoIP traffic. Some government agencies argue that it covers mass surveillance of communications rather than just tapping specific lines and that not all CALEA-based access requires a warrant. The original reason for adopting CALEA was the Federal Burea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Directory Assistance
In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory inquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity. Technology Directory assistance systems incorporate a wide range of automation to reduce the cost of human operators. Almost all systems use custom database software to locate listings quickly. Most directory assistance systems use automated readback systems to give out the phone number. This frees the directory assistance operator to move on to another caller as soon as the correct listing is located. Some systems have "store and forward" technology which records "city and state" the caller is requesting and then plays the city and state speech to the operator before they come online and then say "Residential or business listing?" or simply "What listing please?" Interactive voice response systems have been added to many directory assistance systems. These complex systems use speech reco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signaling (telecommunications)
In telecommunication, signaling is the use of signals for controlling communications. This may constitute an information exchange concerning the establishment and control of a telecommunication circuit and the management of the network. Classification Signaling systems may be classified based on several principal characteristics. In-band and out-of-band signaling In the public switched telephone network (PSTN), in-band signaling is the exchange of call control information within the same physical channel, or within the same frequency band, that the telephone call itself is using. An example is dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF), which is used on most telephone lines to customer premises. Out-of-band signaling is telecommunication signaling on a dedicated channel separate from that used for the telephone call. Out-of-band signaling has been used since Signaling System No. 6 (SS6) was introduced in the 1970s, and also in Signalling System No. 7 (SS7) in 1980 which became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Class 4 Telephone Switch
A class-4, or tandem, telephone switch is a U.S. telephone company central office telephone exchange used to interconnect local exchange carrier offices for long distance communications in the public switched telephone network. A class-4 switch does not connect directly to telephones; instead, it connects to other class-4 switches and to class-5 telephone switches. The telephones of service subscribers are wired to class-5 switches. When a call is placed to a telephone that is not on the same class-5 switch as the originating subscriber, the call may be routed through one or more class-4 switches to reach its destination. Etymology ''Tandem'' derives from the Latin adverb ''tandem'' meaning ''at length'', and is used in English to mean a group of two people or machines working together, usually in series. A tandem switch is used to interconnect other switches via trunks. Thus, tandem switches are always part of a series of switches and lines that connect telephone callers to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Interface Device
upTwo simple NIDs, carrying six lines each, on the outside of a building upA German copper phone line termination box called '' Abschlusspunkt LinienTechnik'' (APL, " Demarcation point") In telecommunications, a network interface device (NID; also known by several other names) is a device that serves as the demarcation point between the carrier's local loop and the customer's premises wiring. Outdoor telephone NIDs also provide the subscriber with access to the station wiring and serve as a convenient test point for verification of loop integrity and of the subscriber's inside wiring. Naming Generically, an NID may also be called a network interface unit (NIU), telephone network interface (TNI), system network interface (SNI), or telephone network box. Australia's National Broadband Network uses the term '' network termination device'' or NTD. A smartjack is a type of NID with capabilities beyond simple electrical connection, such as diagnostics. An ''optical network term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
