Local Exchange Carrier (LEC)

Each market, or LATA, has one particular Local Exchange Carrier, sometimes ILEC (Incumbent Exchange Carrier) that previously provided the ‘traditional’ phone service of delivering physical copper wire to each residence from their CO (Central Office). Today, the LEC more so serves as the party who owns the local trunking/switching infrastructure. In order to deliver calls to a particular area, a CLEC needs to be connected with a LEC (see ICA) to ultimately deliver the calls.

How is Bandwidth Involved with LECs

Bandwidth operates a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) that provides some or all of the interstate exchange access services used to send traffic to or from an end user. Bandwidth’s communications services include voice, phone numbers, 911 access, and messaging.

What are the Benefits of Bandwidth’s Involvement with LEC

Bandwidth has a dedicated LNP (Local Number Portability) team that handles the phone number provisioning that we provide to LECs. Bandwidth is focused on automating the process of looking up phone numbers as well as reporting back on portability. This automation allows businesses to provide their customers with the exact date(s) and time(s) their numbers will move which in turn leads to greater customer satisfaction.

Terms Related to LEC

• Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC)
• SIP Trunk
• Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)