The FCC International Bureau today released its annual year-end circuit status report for U.S. facilities-based international common carriers. The year-end 2004 report reflects five 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, 2004. In addition to 2004 data the report includes data from 2001 to 2003 for all international points listed by type of transmission facility.
Overall, the reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits grew by five percent over 2003 figures. (The reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits at year-end 2004 was 3,876,995 as compared to the revised year-end 2003 figure of 3,676,003.)
- By service type: International Message Telephone Service (IMTS) accounted for 14 percent of the total circuits used; International Private Line Services accounted for 51 percent of total circuits; and the remaining 35 percent of total circuits were used for services other than traditional private line services (including data services).
- By transmission type: The proportion of all three types of facilities remained the same as in 2003; undersea cables accounted for 80 percent of the overall active transmission capacity in 2004; terrestrial links accounted for 19 percent of 2004 active circuit capacity; and satellite accounted for one 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) slightly increased from 46 percent in 2003 to 49 percent in 2004.