Long distance voice services manage phone calls made outside a caller’s local calling zone. Typically charged on a per minute basis, long distance rates are extremely competitive, and can vary greatly between providers.

Long distance calls are also broken down by intrastate or interstate. Intrastate calls are made within one state (for example, Sacramento to Los Angeles) whereas interstate calls are made from one state to another, such as Dallas to Chicago. Another term used is Intra-Lata, meaning that the call is outside your local area, but still within the phone company defined LATA you are in.

There are two basic types of long distance, Switched and Dedicated

Switched Long Distance refers to calls run through a local or “switched” carrier. An Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) owns the wires that run through a location, and leases them to other companies. However, long distance lines are another story; Inter eXchange Carriers own and provide exclusive rights to the long distance lines running from one phone company to another. In other words, you have the option to select an additional carrier to handle your long distance and IntraLATA calls.

Dedicated long distance, on the other hand, is a dedicated point-to-point digital data service with transmitting speeds of Fractional T1s and higher. Generally directly connected to IXCs, the signal of a dedicated long distance call is incredibly secure, reliable, and top-quality, because it is designed to transmit voice from end users to service providers. In addition, dedicated long distance, along with ILECs and re-sellers, provide a variety of options for monitoring, diagnostics, and privacy in transmissions. Pricing for dedicated long distance usually consists of two components: (1) transmission speed and (2) a fixed rate for central office termination (a.k.a. access charge or local loop); Service providers ordinarily bill these charges monthly.