WEST POINT, Ga.-Personal communications services provider Powertel Inc., a subsidiary of InterCel Inc., reached an agreement with BellSouth Telecommunications Inc. for decreased and reciprocal interconnection rates as directed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Powertel and BellSouth’s local network will compensate each other for terminating calls on the other’s network. Rates run as low as .0067 cents per minute in some states. Previous rates were more than .02 cents per minute.
The agreement, which went into effect April 1, covers Powertel’s 12-state coverage footprint.
“This levels the playing field considerably,” said Allen Smith, president and chief executive officer of Powertel. “In the past, termination charges represented a fee that wireless providers paid to local exchange carriers when calls were handed off from our system to the local landline network.
