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Facilities-Based Carrier - Fbc |
| A carrier that uses its own facilities to provide service, in contrast with resellers, that purchase the services of other carriers and then retail the services to customers. (Most facilities-based carriers use the services of other carriers to some extent.) |
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Facilities-Based Provider |
| Refers to a service provider that offers services via its own switching stations. Since they have their own equipment, they do not simply resell services of other companies, but are the actual service provider |
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Feature Groups |
| Feature Groups A, B, C, and D (FGA, FGB, FGC, FGD) are four separate switching arrangements available from the long distance carriers. These switching arrangements allow the long distance carrier's end users to make toll calls through their favorite long distance carrier. Feature groups are described in a tariff filed by the National Exchange Carrier Association with the FCC. The feature group used by each carrier together with any special access surcharge determine the service they can provide their customers and the carrier common line access fee they will pay to the long distance carrier involved |
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Federal Communications Commission |
| A federal agency that has jurisdiction over interstate communications services. |
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Fga (Feature Group A) |
| Signaling system which sends calls to the entire LATA. Also used with dial-up service to originate calls from certain locations. Software answer supervision is used with this feature group. Hardware answer supervision is not available with FGA. See Answer Supervision. |
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Fgb (Feature Group B) |
| Signaling which sends calls to a particular central office and does have hardware answer supervision. See Answer Supervision. |
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Fgd (Feature Group D) |
| Equal access 1+ signaling that sends calls to a particular tandem and has hardware answer supervision |
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Fiber Optics |
| Transmission technology that transports digital information from point to point in the form of light pulses through glass-fiber strands |
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Final Authority |
| A person involved in the service order sign-off procedure to check the order for accuracy. The Final Authority clerk is the last person to see the service order before it is sent to the billing system. |
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Flat Rate Service |
| A calling plan that provides unlimited local calling for a certain fee. |
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Foc-Firm Order Confirmation |
| Notice returned to advise that the request for service was processed and is error-free |
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Foliage Attenuation |
| Reductions in signal strength or quality due to signal absorption by trees or foliage obstructions in the signal's line-of-sight path. For example, 800 MHz systems are seldom deployed in forested areas. Pine needles nearly the same length as 800 MHz antennas can negatively affect signal reception in that band |
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Follow Me Roaming |
| The ability of the user's wireless provider to automatically forward incoming calls to the user even when the user has left the home coverage area. |
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Foreign Central Office |
| A Local Exchange Carriers (LEC) switching facility outside a user’s ‘home’ service area. |
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Foreign Exchange Service |
| Provides local calling from an exchange outside the customer’s own local exchange area |
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Four-Wire Line |
| A transmission medium in which each wire pair carries one-way signaling for each party. |
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Fractional T1 |
| A digital T1 line in which the data-carrying capacity is only partially activated. The monthly recurring charges are determined by the amount of bandwidth used |
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Frame Relay |
| A high-speed packet switching protocol used in wide area networks (WANs). It can provide speeds from 56Kbps up to a T3 (45Mbps) and is very popular for LAN-to-LAN connections across remote distances. |
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Franchise Fees/Surcharge |
| Fees paid by the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) to municipalities for the right to provide telephone service within the municipality. Most regulations allow LECs to pass such fees along to their customers |
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Frequency Reuse |
| Technique that enables wireless carriers to increase their system capacity with a limited number of channels. It Works by sufficiently separating transmitters that use the same frequency or set of frequencies so that they do not interfere with one another |
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Frequency |
| The rate at which current alternates. |
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Frs |
| (Family Radio Service) Low power, short-range two-way radio service in the 460 MHz band. |
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Fusf (Federal Universal Service Fee) |
| A charge that contributes to a federal fund for providing discounted communications services to communities across the nation. All communications companies, including local and long distance providers, are required to contribute to this Universal Service Fund. Each company's required contribution is based on its annual revenue. Providers may pass these charges on to end users. |
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Fwa (Fixed Wireless Access) |
| Also known as Wireless Local Loop (WiLL), FWA is a fixed wireless service meant to compete with or substitute for local wireline phone service. |
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Fx (Foreign Exchange) |
| A dedicated service that terminates in the central office of a distant city. FX service provides the customers a local presence in a remote city without the necessity of a physical location |
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