Title 3 . Commerce, Community, and Economic Development

Chapter 52 . Telecommunications

Section 340. Definitions

3 AAC 52.340. Definitions

Unless the context indicates otherwise, in 3 AAC 52.300 - 3 AAC 52.340

(1) "access code for long-distance operator" means the preliminary digits that must be dialed to be connected to the long-distance operator;

(2) "access line" means a circuit between a subscriber's telephone or private branch exchange and the switching center which serves them;

(3) "attempt" means the offering or initiating of a telephone call by a calling customer;

(4) "attendant trunk" means a trunk connecting the caller to an operator;

(5) "average busy season busy hour" means the time-consistent hour, not necessarily a clock hour, having the highest business day load throughout the busy season; it is the same hour for the entire busy season;

(6) "blockage" means a failure in the sequence of connecting a calling customer to a called customer caused by equipment in the busy condition;

(7) "bona fide request" means a good-faith written request by a certificated intrastate interexchange carrier, other than the incumbent carrier, to a local exchange telephone utility for equal access service;

(8) "business day" means each day of a calendar week except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays; holidays are the days which are observed by each individual telephone utility;

(9) "busy hour" means the continuous one-hour period of the day during which the greatest volume of traffic is handled by the facility;

(10) "busy season" means the period of the year consisting from one to three consecutive calendar months during which the greatest volume of traffic is handled in a given central office;

(11) "cable assignment records" means listings of all cable pairs and the interconnections that have been made between them and other cables or equipment;

(12) "call" means an attempted telephone message;

(13) "ccs" means a hundred call seconds; it is a unit of measurement of telephone traffic and represents the equivalent of one call lasting for 100 seconds;

(14) "central office" means a facility having the necessary equipment and operating arrangements for terminating and interconnecting customer lines and trunks or trunks only; however, there may be more than one central office in a building;

(15) "central office entity" means a group of lines using common originating equipment;

(16) "commission" means the Regulatory Commission of Alaska;

(17) "construction program" means a list of projects with their related expenditures that are planned for the budget year; project categories include land and building, central office equipment, outside plant, station equipment, and general equipment;

(18) "cross-talk" means an unwanted signal in one circuit coming from an adjacent circuit;

(19) "customer" means a person, firm, partnership, corporation, municipality, cooperative organization, or governmental agency supplied with telecommunication service by a telephone utility;

(20) "customer line" means a circuit connecting a customer's instrument to the central office;

(21) "customer trouble report" means an oral or written complaint from a customer or user of telecommunication service relating to a physical defect, a difficulty or dissatisfaction with the operation of the utility's facilities; one report must be counted for each oral or written report received even though it may duplicate a previous report or merely involve an inquiry concerning progress on a previous report; when several troubles are reported by one customer, a separate report must be counted for each trouble;

(22) "demand and facility chart" means a chart which presents in statistical and graphical form the past history, current status, and future projection of central office data; one chart includes data for one central office entity or toll switch and contains future expansion plans;

(23) "directory" means a paperbound volume which lists alphabetically the names of subscribers and their corresponding telephone numbers and may include but is not limited to a yellow pages listing;

(24) "directory assistance" means the furnishing of telephone numbers to customers;

(25) "equal access" means a method of interconnection between a local exchange telephone utility and all long distance carriers serving the exchange that

(A) allows a customer's interexchange calls to be automatically directed to the customer's chosen primary interexchange carrier when the customer dials 1-plus or any other abbreviated dialing arrangement authorized by the commission;

(B) requires local exchange telephone utility access service to be made available in equal kind, quality, and price to all interexchange telephone utilities; and

(C) is commonly provided using Feature Group D signalling and interconnection arrangements;

(26) "equipment assignment records" means listings which identify the connections made to each equipment unit;

(27) "exchange" means a unit established by a telephone utility for the administration of telecommunications service in a specified area for which a separate local rate schedule is provided; it may consist of one or more central offices;

(28) "extension station" means an additional station connected on the same circuit as the main station and subsidiary to it;

(29) "Feature Group A" means a line-side connection for interexchange service that is accessed via a 7-digit telephone number that may vary with each exchange;

(30) "Feature Group B" means a trunk-side connection for interexchange service that is accessed by dialing "950-XXXX," with the "XXXX" identifying the desired intrastate interexchange carrier;

(31) "Feature Group D" means a trunk-side connection for interexchange service that is accessed by 1-plus or no-plus dialing by customers presubscribed to the intrastate interexchange carrier or by dialing 10XXX by customers not presubscribed to the intrastate interexchange carrier with the "XXX" identifying the desired intrastate exchange carrier;

(32) "full selective ringing" means a system that permits ringing only one customer on a multi-party circuit;

(33) "held application" means an application for telephone service that cannot be satisfied within the standard installation interval;

(34) "incumbent carrier" means the telephone utility, or its successor, certificated in commission Docket U-69-24 to provide intrastate interexchange telephone service;

(35) "intercept calls" means calls that were improperly addressed and were redirected to an operator or machine which responds with an appropriate recorded message;

(36) "interexchange carrier" means any individual, partnership, association, joint-stock company, trust, governmental entity, or corporation engaged for hire in interexchange communication by wire, fiber, or radio, between two or more exchanges;

(37) "interoffice calls" means calls originating in one central office entity and terminating in another;

(38) "intraoffice switching" means the switching of a call that originates and terminates in the same central office entity;

(39) "keep cost order" means a work order in association with which exact records are kept of the time spent and costs incurred;

(40) "local call" means a telephone call between two stations both of which are located in an area within which intercommunications service is furnished under local rate schedules as specified in the telephone utility's tariffs;

(41) "local service" means telecommunications service furnished under local rate schedules;

(42) "long-distance call" means a telephone call between stations in different local service areas which is furnished under toll rate schedule in the utilities' tariff;

(43) "long lines carrier" means the utility which provides intrastate and interstate circuits;

(44) "loop-around test line" means a line, usually with two terminations accessible on a dial-up basis, that permits one person in a toll office to make two-way transmission tests;

(45) "loss objective of intertoll trunks consistent with the nationwide switching plan" means a transmission loss objective as specified in Notes on Distance Dialing published by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) or in Notes on Transmission Engineering published by the United States Independent Telephone Association.

(46) "main station" means the principal telephone to which a telephone number is assigned and which is connected to the central office equipment by a individual- or party-line circuit;

(47) "no-plus" means a system of dialing in which the calling party dials an interexchange call without any prefix;

(48) "office trunking diagram" means a simplified diagram of a central office entity showing the major components and their interconnections;

(49) "1-PIC dialing" means that a telephone customer's intrastate interexchange call and 0-minus call is routed to the customer's presubscribed interstate interexchange carrier for that access line;

(50) "1-plus" means a system of dialing in which the calling party dials the prefix "1" prior to the telephone number for an interexchange call;

(51) "outside plant" means the telecommunications equipment and facilities installed on, along, over, or under streets, alleys, or highways, or on private rights-of-way between the central office and customers' locations, or between central offices;

(52) "overflow" means the encountering of equipment or facilities in the busy condition during the progressive establishment of a call;

(53) "party-line service" means telephone service which provides that two or more main stations may be served by the same central office circuit;

(54) "PIC" means primary interexchange carrier;

(55) "presubscribed carrier" means the carrier selected by or assigned to a customer's access line through the presubscription process;

(56) "presubscription" means the process by which customers may select a primary interexchange carrier to handle toll calls for a particular access line on a 0-plus, 0-minus, and no-plus or 1-plus basis;

(57) "primary service" means individual-line service or party-line service;

(58) "public telephone" or "public pay telephone" means a telephone instrument, usually equipped with a coin-collecting device, that is installed by a utility certificated by the commission to provide local exchange service for the use of the general public; "public telephone" or "public pay telephone" does not include a private pay telephone instrument provided to the general public under 3 AAC 53.800 - 3 AAC 53.899;

(59) "quiet termination" means a line that terminates in an impedance that simulates the nominal office impedance;

(60) "regrade" means a change between one class of party-line service and another class of party-line service or between a party-line service and an individual-line service;

(61) "service interruption" means the inability to complete calls to or from a telephone station due to facility malfunctions or human error; except that the term as used in secs. 200 - 340 of this chapter does not include service difficulties such as slow dial tone, circuits busy or other network or switching capacity shortages, nor may it be construed to apply where service is interrupted by the negligence or willful act of the subscriber, emergency situation, unavoidable casualties and acts of God, or where the company, under provisions of its tariff, suspends or terminates service because of nonpayment of bills payable to the utility, unlawful or improper use of the facilities or service, or any other reason covered by filed and approved tariffs or regulations of the commission;

(62) "service standard" means a level of service which a telephone utility, under normal conditions, is expected to meet in its certificated territory as representative of adequate service;

(63) "standard installation interval" means 10 working days for the installation of primary service; for other tariffed services when a standard interval is not specified in the tariffs, it means a reasonable period that conforms to general practice in the telephone industry;

(64) "station" means an instrument consisting of a transmitter, receiver, and associated equipment wired to permit the sending or the receiving of messages;

(65) "subscriber" means a customer;

(66) "surveillance level" means a measured grade of service that is generally indicative of a weak spot in a utility's operation and requires investigation or corrective action by the utility;

(67) "telephone utility" means a public utility which furnishes telecommunications service;

(68) "toll operator" means a person who operates a device that establishes, supervises, and times toll calls and who renders assistance to customers in placing toll calls;

(69) "toll trunk" means a trunk which connects a local central office with its toll operating office or a trunk interconnecting toll-operating offices;

(70) "trouble" means the improper function or defective conditions with respect to the operation of telephone facilities over which the telephone utility has control;

(71) "trunk" means a communications channel between central office units or entities;

(72) "2-PIC dialing" means that a telephone customer may select, for each access line, an intrastate interexchange carrier that is different from the customer's presubscribed interstate interexchange carrier and, after selection, may connect to that intrastate interexchange carrier by dialing 0-plus, no-plus, or 1-plus before the telephone number for an intrastate interexchange call or by dialing 0-minus;

(73) "utility" means a telephone utility;

(74) "working days" means business days;

(75) "0-plus" means a method of dialing for an operator-assisted call in which the calling party dials "0" plus the phone number, an operator comes on line, and the caller states the type of call being attempted; this dialing pattern is used primarily for collect, credit-card, person-to-person, and third-party billed calls;

(76) "0-minus" means a method of dialing for an operator-assisted call in which the calling party dials only "0", an operator comes on line, and the caller states the type of call being attempted;

(77) "public advocacy section" means the section established by AS 42.04.150 within the commission.

History: Eff. 1/5/79, Register 69; am 6/29/84, Register 90; am 6/27/92, Register 122; am 10/29/94, Register 132; am 9/20/96, Register 139; am 3/21/2003, Register 165; am 4/24/2004, Register 170

Authority: AS 42.04.070

AS 42.04.150

AS 42.05.141

AS 42.05.151

AS 42.05.311

AS 42.05.321

AS 42.05.800

AS 42.05.810

AS 42.05.990

Editor's note: A copy of the commission docket certificating the "incumbent carrier" to provide intrastate interexchange telephone service is available for review at the offices of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska as specified in 3 AAC 48.010(a) .