The BellSouth Price and Demand Dataset (BSPD) contains public data on prices and demand for interstate rate elements in the historical BellSouth service area from 1992 to 2009. The source data are interstate access price-cap tariff filings made publicly at the FCC. The BSPD compiles and organizes all records listed in the available rate detail files that are part of BellSouth’s annual access filings. The dataset is a tab-delimited text file with the field names as the first record. It is named "bs rd 1992-2009 v2.txt".
This dataset is intended to foster better understanding of communications industry developments, keener appreciation for the realities of economic regulation, and more informed public policy deliberation. This is dataset neither an official nor authoritative compilation. The official FCC public record of tariff filings is the FCC's Electronic Tariff Filing System (ETFS). Annual access filings for 2003 to 2009 are currently available online. One way to find annual access filings is to search by company name for June 10 to June 20 for the filing year of interest. The files for 2003 to 2009 in the source data compilation are named by their file description on ETFS.
The historical BellSouth service area consists of customer premises in nine states in the southeastern region of the U.S: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. BellSouth merged with AT&T on December 29, 2006, but filings specific to the BellSouth service area continue to be made. No significant changes occurred in the geographic scope of the BellSouth service area in the filings from 1992 to 2009.
BellSouth rate detail currently cannot be located for 1993, 2001, and 2002. Place-holder records, one for each year, represent these years in the BSPD.
The BSPD price-cap basket sums have been validated against the sums reported in BellSouth’s annual access filing Tariff Review Plans (TRPs). The rate detail total for 1993 is 2% higher than the TRP revenue total. Rate changes from the date of the rate detail source (3/28/1994) to the revised annual access TRP (7/7/1994) account for this difference.
Trunking and special access baskets for 2008 and 2009 have some larger discrepancies. The trunking basket rate-detail sums in 2008 and 2009 are 21% larger and 14% smaller than the corresponding TRP sums for those years. The special-access basket rate-detail sum for 2009 is 91% larger than special-access TRP sum in 2009. Some unusual doubling of revenue figures is associated with special access rate elements under Area Commitment Plans (ACPs) in filing year 2009. But these doubled revenue figures are not large enough to account for most of the extra special access revenue reported in the rate detail filing. Moreover, the total amount of ACP revenue in 2009 is similar to that in previous years.
Reporting special-access revenue removed from price caps may account for the relatively large amount of special access revenue reported in 2009 in the rate detail. Here's some related discussion, with a note linking to the relevant pricing flexibility orders. Comparisons across years of special access and trunking revenue should consider pricing flexibility orders, the 2009 filing anomaly, and the other issues described above. Detailed data concerning these validation issues are available in an online spreadsheet and an Excel workbook named "BSPD review.xls".
Some inconsistencies exist in the source files for rate element revenues for the years 1998 to 2009. Demand or rates reported as zero account for most of the inconsistencies with absolute value greater than $10,000. Demand and rates in the retail detail records for 2000 to 2009 appear to be reported with less precision than was used for calculating the corresponding revenue figures. This reporting issue appears to account for most of the revenue inconsistencies with non-zero reported demand and rates. Here's data on the revenue inconsistencies (Excel version).
Note that in summing records from the BSPD, total lines should be excluded. The individual, bottom-level rate-elements are coded with line-type=“e”.
Minor data issues and changes between versions are described in BSPD notes.txt.
The rate-detail source files used to the construct the BSPD are available in the rate detail archive. BellSouth’s TRPs are available in the TRP archive.
BSPD Technical Specification
Dataset Fields
|
Field name |
Source |
Description |
|
year |
a |
filing year; see date table for dates of rates |
|
ln |
a |
record sequence number, based on sequence in the source file |
|
basket |
a |
price-cap basket name |
|
line-type |
a |
“e” – rate element; “t” – total line; “d” – descriptive line |
|
lcode |
s |
line codes from the source (sparse, includes some descriptive text) |
|
lname |
s |
service description; in some cases contains header line text |
|
state |
s |
state for which rate element is applicable; null if whole region |
|
zone |
s |
zone for which rate element is applicable; null if whole region |
|
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 |
current price times previous year's demand (crate * demand) |
|
prev |
s |
proposed price time previous year's demand (prate * demand) |
Note: The source column above indicates whether the field is directly from the source data (“s”) or an added classification of the source data (“a”).
Source Files
|
filing year |
source file |
filing date |
source file date |
|
1992 |
BSTRA92R |
6/26/1992 |
6/26/1992 |
|
1994 |
BSTRA94R |
3/28/1994 |
3/28/1994 |
|
1995 |
BSTRA95R |
5/5/1995 |
5/5/1995 |
|
1996 |
BSTRA96R |
5/15/1996 |
1/29/2004 |
|
1997 |
BSTRA97R |
6/28/1997 |
6/28/1997 |
|
1998 |
BSTRANR1-BSTRANR3 |
6/15/1998 |
6/15/1998 |
|
1999 |
bstran99r1-bstran99r3 |
6/16/1999 |
6/16/1999 |
|
2000 |
BSTRA00A-BSTRA00G |
7/24/2000 |
7/24/2000 |
|
2003 |
bs_1 - bs_7 |
6/19/2003 |
6/19/2003 |
|
2004 |
Transmittal No. 828 Rate Detail - A_69196 through Transmittal No. 828 - Rate Detail - G_69206 |
6/16/2004 |
7/28/2009 |
|
2005 |
TN905 - Rate Detail (A)_79418 through TN905 - Rate Detail (G)_79427 |
6/16/2005 |
7/29/2009 |
|
2006 |
TN980 - Rate Detail #1_88462 through TN980 - Rate Detail #7_88470 |
6/16/2006 |
7/29/2009 |
|
2007 |
TN1080 - Rate Detail 7A_97050 through TN1080 - Rate Detail 7F_97057 |
6/15/2007 |
7/24/2009 |
|
2008 |
TN1142 - Rate Detail A_104905 through TN1142 - Rate Detail D_104908 |
6/16/2008 |
7/24/2009 |
|
2009 |
Rate Detail A for Transmittal No. 1179_111615 through Rate Detail D for Transmittal No. 1179_111621 |
6/16/2009 |
7/23/2009 |
Note: Source files are in Lotus 1-2-3 .wk3 and .wk4 formats.