Accessing the NetWork (VOIP)

All phone costs start with leasing some sort of access line or set of access lines from the local exchange carrier (affectionately called LEC, which rhymes with “heck”). For the line itself, you pay a monthly access fee that varies depending on the type of line you lease. For most consumers, the line is a POTS line that permits them to place and receive telephone calls on the PSTN. Local line access costs the typical residential customer an average of about $25 per month, not counting recurring per-minute usage charges, toll charges, regulated fees, and taxes.
For businesses, regular POTS line access costs two to five times what a residential customer pays. If you run a small business, you might lease a group of lines and accept, as consumers meekly do, the telephone numbers assigned and provided by the LEC. A larger company with an in-house telephone system might lease different types of access lines. Some may be POTS lines that support two-way access, permitting callers to place and receive calls. Other types of access lines may be used depending on the size and type of company. (I’ll cover the other types of access lines beginning in topic 4.)
You may hear the term two-way used to refer to POTS lines that can be used to both make and receive calls from the PSTN.
Never one to make things simple, your LEC has a different monthly access cost for each type of line. In addition, if your company has its own telephone system, you pay a one-time fee to buy a bulk list of usable telephone numbers that you assign to your employees. As employees come and go, your company can reassign those telephone numbers accordingly.
Some companies lease higher bandwidth access lines, which are much more expensive. These lines combine bandwidth and provide what are known as POTS line equivalencies. In this way, companies can reduce the total number of physical POTS lines needed and therefore reduce their monthly line-access costs. But to be able to do this, the companies must have their own in-house telephone system, which introduces another cost to the mix. (Telephone systems are introduced in topic 2.)
After you establish access, you can make and receive calls to and from the PSTN. That’s when recurring usage charges kick in. (Just when you thought you were safe!) Usage charges for consumers are based on two factors:
Total length of the call in minutes Calling service category
Timing the call to calculate your usage charges is pretty simple: Multiply the total time in minutes by the rate per minute. Although this is considered simple math, few people time their calls. This is especially the case when the

calls originate at work because we all think “it is a business call and the company pays for it.”
The other factor, the calling service category, presents a more complex challenge because few people know or care to know the differences among calling service categories. There are five such categories, four of which relate directly to your toll usage charges each month. A description of each is coming up next.