ABSTRACT

Collection of quality-of-service data by regulatory agencies has historically been hampered by the difficulty in establishing uniform standards and data specifications and the cost and resources needed to collect and process the data. Allocation of resources by regulatory agencies to quality-of-service data collection has been further limited by the fact that quality-of-service data used internally by the companies is often part of a feedback mechanism within the companies and as such does not usually exhibit dramatic fluctuations requiring outside intervention. As a result of fairly stable quality-of-service levels, quality-of-service monitoring efforts at the federal level have been sporadic and are usually motivated by a significant service problem or are based on a well-defined broader objective. Significant local service problems in the late 1960s, particularly with dial-tone response, recent outage problems, and the institution of price cap regulation, have motivated the most significant regulatory responses.