The Bell Atlantic Bandwidth Price and Demand Dataset (BBPD) contains public data on prices and demand for interstate bandwidth in use in the historical Bell Atlantic service area from 1990 to 2000. The source data for the BBPD are interstate access tariff filings made publicly at the FCC. The BBPD compiles and organizes demand and prices for trunking and special access interstate services from the rate detail files. The most current version of the BBPD is "ba 1990-2000 v2.txt"
This dataset is intended to facilitate exploratory analysis of bandwidth prices and demand, to spur development of new techniques for analyzing price trends, and to foster better informed public policy deliberation. This is dataset neither an official nor authoritative compilation. The official FCC online public record of tariff filings is the FCC's Electronic Tariff Filing System (ETFS).
The historical Bell Atlantic service area consists of customer premises in the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey (part), Pennsylvania (part), Virginia (part), Washington, DC, and West Virginia. Verizon became the name of the company incorporating Bell Atlantic’s historical service area, as well as those of Nynex and GTE.
The source data have been augmented with service, rate element, bandwidth, and other categories. These categories are not official and should be considered merely aids to exploratory analysis of the data. These categories might be improved with further analysis and alternative categories might be created to be suit particular uses.
The ordering of the records in the source data and header records (which have no demand and price data) are important for interpreting records. The dataset includes record sequence numbers that allow browsing the records in the source sequence so as to better understand service specifications.
Source data files are more authoritative than the BBPD. They should be used to interpret, verify, and validate BBPD data as appropriate for particular uses. Because electronic filings for 1990, 1991,and 1993 are currently available only in paper copy, those years are not included in the rate detail source archive.
The BBPD is formatted as a tab-delimited text file. The first line in file contains the field names. The ordering of the records in the source data, as well as header records (which have no demand and price data), are important for interpreting records. The BBPD includes record sequence numbers that allow browsing the records in the source sequence so as to better understand service specifications.
All rate detail records for Bell Atlantic from 1992 to 2009 are in another dataset, the Bell Atlantic Price and Demand Rate Detail Dataset (BARD). That dataset lacks the detailed coding of trunking and special access elements available here for 1990 to 2000. The BARD replaces a prior, similar dataset that included only special access and trunking elements from 2001 to 2009.
Related data:
Work using these data:
A. Field Specifications
|
Field name |
Source |
Description |
|
year |
a |
year of annual access filing |
|
ln |
a |
record sequence number (includes some non-integer values) |
|
lid |
s |
Line identifier, if any, from source file |
|
lidm |
a |
match to lid in record from previous year (sparse) |
|
basket |
a |
beginning in 2000, separate trunking ("tr) and special access ("sa") baskets established |
|
bandwidth |
a |
bandwidth of channel in megabits per second |
|
service-cat |
a |
groups similar services (e.g. DS1, DS3), drawing mainly upon source file definitions |
|
service-code |
a |
more detailed categorization than service-cat, but not as consistent or complete |
|
rate-element |
a |
categories types of rates within a service category; rates for rate elements other than "NRC" or "other" are monthly rates |
|
term |
a |
term/plan requirement for rate element (text field) |
|
term-months |
a |
term simplified to number of months for term plans (number) |
|
zone |
a |
zone (1,2, or 3) for which rate element applies (no zone implies universally available) |
|
usoc |
s |
Universal Service Order Codes, also known as Uniform Service Order Codes (sparse) |
|
service |
s/a |
service name given in the rate detail file, augmented using sequence header information; sparse for 1990-91, for which no electronic source available |
|
demand |
s |
previous year's demand (base period demand); for elements charged monthly, it's the sum of charged elements across months |
|
crate |
s |
current price for rate element, existing about June 15 of year of filing |
|
prate |
s |
proposed price for rate element, proposed to go into effect about July 1 of year of filing |
|
crev |
s |
revenue from rate element measured as current price times base period demand (yearly revenue) |
|
prev |
s |
revenue from rate element measured as proposed price times base period demand (yearly revenue) |
Note: The source column indicates whether the field is directly from the source data (“s”) or an added classification of the source data (“a”).
Some of the data categorizations have been revised since the statistics reported in Galbi (2001a) and Galbi (2001b).
B. Rate Element Categorizations (rate-element)
Within these unofficial, tentative definitions, "special access" means a transmission service other than that for public switched voice. “Trunking” means a transmission service for public switched voice service.
|
CT |
channel termination: fixed monthly charge for special-access connection between customer point of presence and service provider's multi-connection network (wire centers, multi-degree nodes) |
|
CMF |
channel milage fixed: fixed monthly charge for special-access link within service provider's multi-connection network |
|
CMPM |
channel mileage per mile: monthly charge per mile for service provider network special-access link within service provider's multi-connnection network |
|
EF |
entrance facility: fixed monthly charge for trunking connection between customer point of presence and service provider's multi-connection network (wire centers, multi-degree nodes) |
|
DTF |
direct trunking fixed: fixed monthly charge for trunking link within service provider's multi-connection network |
|
DTPM |
direct trunking mileage per mile: monthly charge per mile for service provider network trunking link within service provider's multi-connnection network |
|
other |
other type of rate element, including non-recurring charges (NRC) |
1.C. Service Categorizations (service-cat)
These service definitions are not mutually exclusive. In general, services have been categorized as seems most appropriate for the service heading and source organization in the source file.
|
ATM |
Asynchronous Transfer Mode service |
|
audio |
historically old audio transport service, e.g. for radio stations |
|
BVS |
Billing Verification Service |
|
CCS |
Common Channel Signaling service |
|
DDS |
Digital Data Service, a historically early digital connectivity service |
|
DIV |
diversity service, an option to increase reliability of a connection |
|
DS1 |
a historically early dedicated 1.544 Mb connection |
|
DS3 |
a historically early dedicated 44.736 Mb connection |
|
DSL |
Digital Subscriber Line connection, a residential data connection that first appeared in the source data in 1999 |
|
FDDI |
Full Fiber Distributed Data Interface |
|
FMS |
Facility Maintenance Service |
|
frame relay |
a historically early data connectivity service |
|
GLVS |
Group Link Video Service |
|
IBT |
IntelliLight Broadband Transport |
|
ICAN |
Intellilight Customer Assurance Network |
|
ICC |
interconnection charge |
|
ICSR |
IntelliLight Custom SONET Ring |
|
IDSR |
IntelliLight Dedicated SONET Ring |
|
IEF |
IntelliLight Entrance Facilities |
|
IP |
IP (Internet Protocol) Routing Service |
|
ISAN |
Intellight Shared Assurance Network |
|
ISDP |
IntelliLight Shared Dual Path |
|
ISSP |
IntelliLIght Shared Single Path |
|
lightwave |
optic cable strands (dark fiber) |
|
Metallic |
early low-speed signalling system, often used for alarm system connectivity |
|
SASS |
Switched Access Signalling Service |
|
SMDS |
Switched Multimegabit Data Service |
|
SONET |
primarily SONET Access Loop Termination, not well distinguished from other SONET services and ATM |
|
Telegraph |
telegraph connections |
|
TSP |
Telecommunications Service Priority option |
|
TST |
Tandem Switched Transport |
|
VG |
Voice-Grade connectivity |
|
video |
historically old video transport service, e.g. for television stations |
|
wideband |
historically old data service |
An additional term used in the service descriptions is ASWC, an abbreviation for Alternate Serving Wire Center.