The ARC will appear as a separate charge in the telephone section of the bill.

Local exchange companies incur significant costs to provide service to their customers. The access revenues that local exchange companies receive from long distance companies help offset some of those costs to keep the cost of local service affordable. As the costs are associated with local service, the FCC determined that it was appropriate to allow local exchange carriers to recover a portion of the lost access revenues from their customers.

The access reduction will reduce the costs for long-distance carriers, as one of their largest costs is the payments for access to local networks.

The current system that is used by long-distance companies to compensate local companies for use of the local network was first established in 1984, after the AT&T divestiture, and at a time when there was no competition for local service. Much has changed since 1984 and the FCC recognized that this system did not work well when there is competition for local service. In addition, the FCC believes the current system may make it difficult to develop and use new technologies, such as internet protocol networks.

In an Order released on November 18, 2011, the FCC required local exchange carriers to reduce the rates they charge to long-distance companies to complete or terminate long-distance calls.

When you make a long-distance call, your long-distance carrier must pay All West Communications for starting, or originating, the call. In addition, your long-distance carrier must pay the telephone company that provides local service to the person you are calling to complete or terminate the call. The charges that the long-distance provider pays to All West Communications to originate the call and the other local exchange company to terminate the call are referred to as access (as in the access the long-distance provider must get to the local network).

The Access Recovery Charge, or ARC, allows incumbent local exchange carriers, such as All West Communication, to recover part of the revenues lost through FCC-required reductions to access rates.

Please review our Terms and Conditions for residential services then stop by the office or call us to put your services on hold.

We cannot post payments while we are printing and mailing bills, which occurs from the 25th through the end of the month. Therefore, if we receive a check after the 25th of the month, it will be processed and posted once all the bills are mailed.

The “Amount Due”, reflects the amount of your normal monthly charges, and is due on the 25th of the month. The “Amount Delinquent” reflects an unpaid balance from the previous month and is due immediately.