(1) All companies must meet the applicable network performance standards set forth in this section. The standards applied to each service quality measurement are the minimum acceptable quality of service under normal operating conditions. All performance standards apply to each central office individually and must be measured at or below that level. The performance standards do not apply to abnormal conditions, including, but not limited to work stoppage directly affecting provision of service in the state of Washington, holidays, force majeure, or major outages caused by persons or entities other than the local exchange company (LEC) or its agents.

(2) Switches. End-office switches, in conjunction with remote switches where deployed, must meet the following standards:

(a) Dial service. For each switch, companies must meet the following minimum standards during the switch's average busy-hour of the average busy season:

(i) Dial tone must be provided within three seconds on at least ninety-eight percent of calls placed; and

(ii) Ninety-eight percent of calls placed must not encounter an intraswitch blocking condition within the central office, or blocking in host-remote, or interoffice local trunks.

(b) Intercept. Central office dial equipment must provide adequate access to an operator or to a recorded announcement intercept to all vacant codes and numbers. Less than one percent of intercepted calls may encounter busy or no-circuit-available conditions during the average busy-hour, of the busy-season.

(3) Interoffice facilities. Blocking performance during average busy-hour for ninety-nine percent of trunk groups for any month must be less than one-half of one percent for intertoll and intertandem facilities and less than one percent for local and EAS interoffice trunk facilities. The blocking standard for E911 dedicated interoffice trunk facilities must be less than one percent during average busy-hour of the average busy season. Two consecutive months is the maximum that a single trunk group may be below the applicable standard.

(4) Outside plant.

(a) Local loops. Each LEC must design, construct, and maintain subscriber loops to the standard network interface or demarcation point as follows:

(i) For voice grade, local exchange service loops must meet all performance characteristics specified in Section 4 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Standard Telephone Loop Performance Characteristics. Information about this standard regarding the version adopted and where to obtain it is set forth in WAC 480-120-999.

(ii) For voice grade service, the circuit noise level on customer loops measured at the customer network interface must be equal to or less than 20.0 dBrnC, except that digitized loops and loops in excess of 18,000 feet must have a noise level objective of less than 25.0 dBrnC, and noise levels must not exceed 30 dBrnC.

(b) Special circuits. Off-premise station circuit loss must not exceed 5.0 dB at 1004 Hz when measured between the customer switch demarcation and the customer station demarcation. LECs with over fifty thousand access lines must maintain design criteria for special circuits. Companies must make channel performance criteria available to customers upon request.

(c) Digital services. LECs must meet the availability objectives for digital private line circuit performance specified in the American National Standards for Telecommunications, "Network Performance Parameters for Dedicated Digital Services for Rates Up To and Including DS3 - Specifications." Information about this standard regarding the version adopted and where to obtain it is set forth in WAC 480-120-999. Upon request of a customer, a LEC may provide to that customer digital services that do not meet the performance standards set forth in (b) of this subsection.

(5) Service to interexchange carriers. LECs must provide service to interexchange carriers at the grade of service ordered by the interexchange carrier. At a minimum, each interexchange carrier must order sufficient facilities from each LEC such that no more than two percent of all calls are blocked at the LEC's switch.

(6) Companies must monitor the network performance of the equipment they own, operate, or share at frequent intervals so that adequate facilities can be designed, engineered and placed in service when needed to meet the standards of this section.

(7) Each Class A LEC must arrange and design incoming trunks to the primary repair service center so that traffic overflows during service interruptions can be redirected or forwarded to an alternate repair or maintenance service center location.