The FCC International Bureau today released its annual year-end circuit status report for U.S. facilities-based international carriers. The year-end 2003 report reflects healthy growth in the use of U.S.-international facilities for international calls, private line services, and other services from the United States.
The report is based on information provided by U.S. international facilities-based carriers and covers U.S. undersea cables, satellites, and terrestrial links. It identifies the activated (inservice) and idle (available but not in-service) circuits for each international point as of December 31, 2003. The report, which is valuable for Commission regulatory purposes as well as for public use, also includes data from 2000 to 2002 for all international points listed by type of transmission facility.
Overall, the reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits grew by 34 percent over 2002 figures. (The reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits at year-end 2003 was 3,804,359 as compared to the year-end 2003 figure of 2,844,862. )
- By service type, International Message Telephone Service (IMTS) accounted for 13 percent of the total circuits used; International Private Line Services accounted for 59 percent of total circuits; and the remaining 29 percent of total circuits were used for services other than traditional private line services (including data services).
- By transmission type, undersea cables accounted for 80 percent of the overall active transmission capacity in 2003, compared to 76 percent in 2002; terrestrial links accounted for 18 percent of 2003 active circuit capacity a decrease from 2002’s 21 percent; and satellite accounted for one percent of overall transmission capacity, a decrease from three percent in 2002. The top 30 destinations among all international routes account for 97 percent of the total activated circuits. The percentage of idle circuits as compared to the total circuit capacity (active and idle) decreased from 58 percent in 2002 to 45 percent in 2003.