The FCC’s International Bureau today released its annual year-end circuit status report for U.S.-international facilities-based common carriers. The year-end 2005 report reflects 56 percent 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 common carriers and covers U.S. undersea cables, satellites, and terrestrial links. It identifies the activated (in-service) and idle (available but not in-service) circuits for each international point as of December 31, 2005.
Additionally, for purposes of comparison, this report incorporates historical data from our 2002-2004 circuit status reports. Overall, the reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits grew by 56 percent since 2004. (The reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits at year-end 2005 was 6,043,315 as compared to the year-end 2004 figure of 3,876,995)
- By service type: International Message Telephone Service (IMTS) accounted for 11 percent of the total circuits used; International Private Line Services accounted for 50 percent of total circuits; and the remaining 39 percent of total circuits were used for services other than tradit ional private line services (including data services).
- By transmission type: Undersea cables accounted for 84 percent of the overall active transmission capacity in 2005; terrestrial links accounted for 15 percent of 2005 active circuit capacity; and satellite accounted for 0.3 percent of overall transmission capacity.
- 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) increased slightly from 49 percent in 2004 to 50 percent in 2005.