The FCC International Bureau today released its annual year-end circuit status report for U.S. facilities-based international carriers. The year-end 2002 report reflects continued modest growth in the use of U.S.-international facilities for international calls and private line 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 (in-service) and idle (available but not in-service) circuits for each international point as of December 31, 2002. The report, which is valuable for Commission regulatory purposes as well as for public use, also includes data from 1999 to 2001 for all international points listed by type of transmission facility.
Showing a slightly slower growth in 2002 than in 2001, the reported number of activated 64 Kbps equivalent circuits at year-end 2002 was 2,844,862, which is approximately an 18 percent increase from 2001’s revised figure of 2,410,526. By service type, International Message Telephone Service (IMTS) accounted for 16 percent of the total circuits used; International Private Line Services accounted for 70 percent of total circuits; and the remaining 14 percent of total circuits were used for other data and video services (outside of traditional private line services).
By transmission type, undersea cables increased from 72 percent of activated circuits in 2001 to 76 percent in 2002; terrestrial links decreased from 25 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2002; and satellites stayed the same, accounting for 3 percent of total activated circuits in 2002. The top 30 destinations among all international routes account for 96 percent of the total activated circuits. The percentage of idle circuits as compared to the total circuit capacity (active and idle) increased from 56 percent in 2001 to 58 percent in 2002.