UNE-P

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 specified three ways that competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) in the United States can provide competing local telephone service: build and interconnect, bundled wholesale purchase, and unbundled service. Securing unbundled service from the incumbent LECs (ILECs) essentially was a matter of selecting from a menu of network elements, including local loops, local exchange and tandem switches (including software features), interoffice transmission facilities, signaling and call-related database facilities, operations support systems (OSSs) and information, and operator and directory assistance facilities.When all elements from the menu are chosen, this approach is known as Unbundled Network Elements-Platform (UNE-P) and the effect is the same as the bundled service, but the total price typically is at a discount of 40