A CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) is a company that provides telecommunications services within the US, and competes with other carriers. These already established carriers are known as incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC).

To better understand LECs, let’s see look at how they are broken up. There are two categories of LECs: CLECS and ILECS. ILECs are the original monopoly LECs in the area, and are treated differently than the newer installed CLECs. There is also type of LEC which is lesser mentioned than the previous two, and is known as a DLEC (Data Local Exchange Carrier). These specialize in providing DSL services within a given area, as opposed to providing a broad telephone service. They lease lines from the incumbent local exchange services and resell them to local ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to make a profit.

Similar to how the ILEC’s function, CLECs provide telecommunication service all within a LATA.

What is a LATA?

A LATA (Local Access and Transport Area) is and area that is managed by a local exchange carrier. Calls made outside of a LATAs boundaries are handled by an IXC (IntereXchange Carrier). If a call is made within a LATA, the call is considered IntraLATA; if a call is made between two different LATAs, the call is considered InterLATA.

What is IXC?

An IntereXchange Carrier (IXC) is simply a long-distance telephone company. They are used to help LECs exchange calls between other LECs, in what we’ve found is called a InterLATA call. They are the ones that carry voice traffic between the two LECs, and different exchanges are used between different geological areas. Although most voice traffic is digital these days, the IXCs use analog lines. Because of this, voice traffic is put into a data stream.

These types of streams can then be mixed with other types of data traffic, and becuase of this can be combined with traffic like DSL uplinks. Because the information carried from one LEC to another may be a long distance, he IXCs use optical fiber, which do not degrade in quality over long distances, and are ideal from this type of data transfer. However, it is imporant to help keep the cable in as straight a line as possible because of the fact that they don’t work optimally when bent or snaked through anything. This type of fiber is also good for high speed transmissions, being much faster than what CAT5 and other similar cables can produce.

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