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Testing in the Unbundled Loop

Table of Contents:
Definition and Overview
1. Why It Is Important to Test in the Local Loop
2. The Problem of Gaining Access to the Local Loop
3. Unbundled Local Loop Defined
4. How to Take Your Telephone Number with You
5. How Remote Call Forwarding Works
6. How Existing Testing Strategies Can Be Costly
7. Connectivity + Total Solution = Cost Savings
8. ILECs, CLECs, and the Future of the Unbundled Loop
Self-Test
Glossary
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Self-Test
1. Why has customer service become more important since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996?
a. The burden of maintaining a high level of service is now the responsibility of the ILECs.
b. As more providers share the number of local loops made available through deregulation, the demands of customer service on any individual company decreases.
c. When service deteriorates, customers now have the option of switching providers.
d. CLECs will only lease up to 20 percent of the local loop, easing their share of customer service demands.
2. Which of the following is not a reason why it is still necessary to test local loops?
a. Some industry analysts predict that by 2005, 75 percent of all telco traffic will be nonvoice data use, which will run only on copper that is well-maintained.
b. The ability to change providers has ensured that customers become far less tolerant of service problems.
c. The ability to get an accurate picture of plant conditions makes it much easier to control capital expenditures for new cable.
d. State Public Utilities Commissions exist to sort out territorial misunderstandings between the new competitors.
3. Why is it important that ILECs and CLECs establish a level of cooperation with each other?
a. They each must determine how much testing and maintenance information to share.
b. They are competitors and must each be able to avoid problems which are not theirs.
c. They hope to avoid costly litigation over testing and maintenance issues.
d. Since the demands of customer service lessen with increased competition, support of the field force is correspondingly decreased.
4. What sort of standard tests will both ILECs and CLECs still need to do in order to maintain adequate service?
a. They must both be able to identify phone numbers and make certain each number is working on the correct pair.
b. They must both be able to do loop conditioning in order to support their field forces.
c. They must both be able to do proactive cable scanning in order to reduce trouble reports, as well as for cable maintenance.
d. all of the above
5. Why are traditional testing methods unusable in the unbundled scenario?
a. Field technicians now need remote testing units in order to do line conditioning and diagnose troubles in both bundled and unbundled loops.
b. Connectivity is lost because the unbundled copper pairs no longer go through the ILEC switch.
c. Typically, CLECs establish regional switches in areas some distance from cities in order to take advantage of lower property costs.
d. The cable from the demarcation point to the customer's premises is now the responsibility of either the customer or the CLEC.
6. Which of the following is not a reason why number portability is becoming an issue of increasing importance to providers?
a. The technical demands of allowing customers to keep their phone numbers when they move are growing more complex.
b. The 20 percent of the population that moves each year want to keep their original telephone number.
c. Though customers may wish to keep the same phone number when they move, they will not consider changing providers if their phone number has to change.
d. Remote call forwarding is only a short-term solution because each forwarded call must be processed twice.
7. What is the primary reason why LNR, in which constantly updated databases match phone numbers to locations, is a better long-term solution than remote call forwarding?
a. With LNR each call is processed only once.
b. Customers want to keep their phone numbers when they move because it gives them a part of their identity.
c. It eliminates the need for separate donor switch numbers and recipient switch numbers.
d. It results in a smaller telco work force because the need to switch jumpers in the local loop is eliminated.
8. What is the most important element of a total solution to the challenge of testing and maintenance in the unbundled loop?
a. connectivity
b. remote testing of standard equipment and prequalification for new services
c. records verification and database updating
d. all of the above
9. How can remote testing of the local loop save telcos money?
a. It can cut trouble dispatch rates by as much as 50 percent.
b. It can reduce the number of trouble reports by doing regular proactive scanning tests.
c. Testing can be used to allow an outside plant technician to fix more than one problem on a single dispatch.
d. all of the above
Glossary >>

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