Subscriber network operator
A subscriber network operator (TNB; Engl. Local Exchange Carrier , LEC) is an operator of local networks for telephony , the subscriber to its network connects and network connections provides.
Typically, such a network operator markets telephone connections directly to the subscribers and acts as a telephone company ; it is then a fixed network provider , full access provider or direct access provider .
In Germany, Deutsche Telekom, as the established operator of the telephone network, which was formerly run as a state monopoly , is by far the most important and only market-dominant TNB.
After the market liberalization in recent years, TNBs such as Arcor or HanseNet (" alternative TNB", English " Competitive LEC" or CLEC) usually rent the unbundled last mile of the established local network operator as an advance service to connect their customers their own local exchanges , with the transfer of lines usually taking place at the main distribution center .
Providers who do not maintain conventional switching technology in the central office , but only DSLAMs (e.g. for line sharing or providers of NGN connections or pure data connections ) are referred to using the English term Data LEC or Data CLEC .
Relationship with long distance providers
Unlike active in the local network operators to businesses, area cross-communicate long distance, called network operator (VNB; English IXCs = Interexchange Carrier.).
In the USA, the LECs are primarily made up of the regional monopoly providers of voice services, the so-called "Baby Bells", which after the reorganization and liberalization of the American telephone market in the 1970s from the former "Mama" Bell Telephone Company and AT&T originated. These are known as incumbent LECs or ILECs .
In the European telephone networks, the division into ILECs (Baby Bells) and IXCs, which occurred in the course of the reorganization of the market in the USA at the time, was not implemented - and accordingly the European TNB are usually also present on the market as DSOs; the distinction between their respective roles as TNB and DSO is made in Europe for the purpose of market regulation .