Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier: ILEC. "The telephone company." An ILEC provides local exchange telephone services to a specific region. During the Enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, those companies providing a substantial share of the "local exchange" services became known as an ILEC. Since, any carrier that has substantially displaced the current ILEC may itself assume the role or such a carrier exists in a certain location that is comparable to current ILEC may coexist as an ILEC. Being an ILEC requires an entity to perform duties differently than a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in the same area. The ILEC must provide interconnection points and reasonable feasibly access to those points. This includes collocation facilities. They must provide "unbundled" access (native transport) on their network. In other words, they must allow reasonable access at a reasonable cost (tariff) to competitors for the delivery and resale of telecommunications services. Most CLECs use the ILECs network to resell services to both residential and commercial customers.
A term used to refer to a Bell Operating Company.
Independent: An individually owned and operated cable television system (compare with
(I-NET) Institutional Network: A private, dedicated network built and/or operated by a cable TV system for local schools, businesses, or government.
Interactive: Two-way communications allowing a person to both send and receive information (compare with passive or receive-only systems, such as broadcast television).
Interconnection: The linking of two or more telecommunications networks, such as a cable system to a local exchange company or a long distance carrier.
Interlaced: A scanning format for televisions which blends two separate images, alternatively scanned on odd and even numbered lines, into one frame (compare with PROGRESSIVE scanning).
Internet: A global data network supporting research, engineering, commercial, information, and educational services.
Intranet: An in-house company network Web site that serves the employees of the enterprise and which offers similar features and services as the Internet.
(IP) Internet Protocol: An International Standards Organization (ISO) standard that implements the network layer 3 of an open system interconnection (OSI) model that contains a network address and is utilized in directing a message to a different network.
(IS) Information Service: The department in a company which oversees the computers, networking and data management. This term has been updated to IT (Information Technology).
(ISDN) Integrated Services Digital Network: A standard and integrated digital network that allows users to simultaneously send voice, data and video over multiple multiplexed communications channels from a common network interface.
(ISN) Internet Service Node: An interconnection point in the Internet network to other specific entities.
(ISP) Internet Service Provider: A service provider that has its own network (or leases) to which end-users dial into to connect to the Internet.
(ITSP) Internet Telephony Service Provider: A company that provides users with telephony service via the Internet through standard telephone wires.
(ITU) International Telecommunications Union: An international organization within which governments and private sectors set communications standards.
IXC (Interexchange Carrier): A long distance telephone company linking separate local exchanges.