How do telephone companies connect with each other?

Question

Suppose there's three telephone companies: X, Y and Z.

How would X's customer make a call to Z's customer? Through a connection, of course.

But would company X need to pay company Z for such a call? Or would company Z need to pay X to receive such a call? Or would neither of them have to pay?

Answer 1

Company X transfers the call to the main resource which is usually the nationwide land-line service. They transfer the call to some other company Y. The main service charges a bit extra as about 5 percent of the cost of the call charges that is within the network X.