Access minutes

In telecommunications law, access minutes or access minutes of use is "that usage of exchange facilities in interstate or foreign service for the purpose of calculating chargeable usage. On the orginating end of an interstate or foreign call, usage is to be measured from the time the originating end user's call is delivered by the telephone company and acknowledged as received by the interexchange carrier's facilities connected with the originating exchange. On the terminating end of an interstate or foreign call, usage is to be measured from the time the call is received by the end user in the terminating exchange. Timing of usage at both the orginating and terminating end of an interstate or foreign call shall terminate when the calling or called party disconnects, whichever event is recognized first in the originating and terminating end exchanges, as applicable."