Level 3 expects that you, like many of our customers, will have seasonally high call volumes due to the upcoming, mid-term election. We have made some changes to our network and our management of mass-call events and, as a result, would like to proactively request information from you in order to allow us to support your traffic demand effectively. We request your engagement to protect your traffic and to ensure that we can terminate the calls that you offer Level 3 to the greatest extent possible. 

Management of Mass-Call Events
Level 3 has upgraded our VoIP edge equipment. If you currently send your Level 3® Voice Termination traffic to us via an IP connection, then your Level 3 Sales Engineer will contact you in the upcoming days to schedule the migration from the existing edge IP address to the new edge IP address. 
For IP-interconnected Voice Termination traffic that has not been migrated to the new VoIP edge, we request the following:
•	Control call volume — Please keep the number of calls within the established calls-per-second limit of 50 calls per second (cps), unless otherwise notified.
•	Distribute traffic — We realize that the nature of election traffic will require you to target a specific geographic area for a limited amount of time. Given those limitations, please distribute the calls within the widest geographic area possible and across the longest timeframe possible.
•	If excessive cps or finely targeted mass-call events prevent Level 3 from serving other customers, we reserve the right to limit incoming call volume. This will be done in a cooperative manner to the greatest extent possible.

After IP-interconnected Voice Termination traffic has been migrated to the new VoIP edge, Level 3 will have the following capabilities: 
•	Session limits — The new VoIP edge will have set session limits for simultaneous calls. Calls offered beyond the established session limit for a given customer will be rejected.
•	Congestion control —To avoid the involuntary shutdown of customer edge equipment, the new VoIP edge will temper incoming traffic to alleviate congestion induced by very high call volumes. 
Please be aware, these new capabilities will be used to deal with unexpected and unpredictable call patterns. The Level 3 engineering team and your Sales Engineer will work with you prior to the migration to properly design and size the interconnect to the new VoIP edge in order to serve your traffic.

 
For TDM-interconnected Voice Termination traffic, we request the following:
•	Distribute traffic — We realize that the nature of election traffic will require you to target a specific geographic area for a limited amount of time. Given those limitations, please distribute the calls within the widest geographic area possible and across the longest timeframe possible.
•	If finely targeted mass-call events prevent Level 3 from serving other customers, we reserve the right to limit incoming call volume. This will be done in a cooperative manner to the greatest extent possible.

How We Can Succeed Together
We are making these efforts in order to optimize the protection and service of your business and to provide a predictable environment in which you can serve your customers. Level 3 wants to work with you to provide consistent and reliable Voice Termination services during the election season. To that end, please work closely with your Sales Engineer and the Level 3 operations team to plan and execute your move to the new VoIP edge.
Please provide the following information to your Sales Engineer by September 22:
•	A forecast of any seasonal traffic that you expect in the next three months. To the extent possible, please provide call volume by time period and by destination.
•	The average call-hold time for this seasonal traffic.
•	The expected answer seizure ratio for this seasonal traffic.

Please contact your account manager or Sales Engineer with further questions.

Best Regards,

Brian Murphy
Product Management — Voice Termination Services