CAPEK%YKTVMX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (07/16/90)
When there's more than one local exchange carrier operating within a LATA, is service between them provided by a long distance carrier, or by the carriers interconnecting directly, or both? Who drew up the LATA boundaries, and based on what criteria? Peter Capek [Moderator's Note: I do not know how the LATA boundaries were drawn up, but here in Chicago, Illinois Bell simply connects with Centel direct, and vice-versa. IBT's Chicago-Newcastle CO has both 312 and 708 prefixes assigned to it, and calls from IBT's Newcastle office to Centel's Chicago-Newcastle office are local, untimed calls. Centel also has both 312 and 708 prefixes in the same office. David Tamkin is the expert on Centel/IBT <===> 312/708 boundary lines, etc. PT]
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (07/17/90)
In article <9781@accuvax.nwu.edu> is written: >When there's more than one local exchange carrier operating within a >LATA, is service between them provided by a long distance carrier, or >by the carriers interconnecting directly, or both? Within a LATA, the carriers hook up any old way they want. In fact, one LEC may use a second to get to inter-lata long distance carriers. For example, my uncle's phone company in northwestern Vermont has always connected only to New England Tel, with NET forwarding inter-lata calls to AT&T. AT&T recently ran a line directly to his telco bypassing NET -- even though his call volume is pretty small, NET was charging enough that it was worth their while to run a line all the way from Manchester NH. No other LD carrier has asked to be connected to his company, and he doesn't even have billing arrangements with any of them. I keep meaning to call him collect via Sprint so we can see what, if anything happens to the bill. He's not looking forward to equal access, it will be a lot of work and expense, and he expects nearly all of his customers would stick with AT&T anyway, most of them being Vermont farmers. I have heard that in Indiana, all of the independent telcos have banded together to form a peculiar long distance company called Indiana Switch, which is the exclusive LD carrier for all of them. Indiana Switch has a central POP to which all of the other LD carriers can connect. I assume that the telcos pass regular ANI info to Indiana Switch, which looks up the numbers in one central database and routes each call to the subscriber's preferred carrier. In this way, the telcos avoid having to implement equal access locally, except perhaps to reprogram some more modern exchanges to pass 10XXX. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl
goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) (07/17/90)
In article <9781@accuvax.nwu.edu>, CAPEK%YKTVMX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes... >Who drew up the LATA boundaries, and based on what criteria? The whole Divestiture Thing (as ynk might say it) stems from an ancient lawsuit against AT&T/Western Electric, where the Dept. of Justice, as plaintiff, wanted AT&T to divest WECo. AT&T had other ideas and wanted to get into the computer business. (They were using 3Bs internally and thought many people wanted to pay for them.) So they offered the Reagan Justice Dept. (some new guys there did NOT believe much in anti-trust law, monopolies being the natural order of laissez-faire) a deal: They'd spin off the local telcos in exchange for keeping WECo. and being allowed to enter the computer biz. (They were kept out of it by the 1956 consent decree in essentially the same case.) The original deal gave AT&T _all_ existing "interexchange" calls, leaving only local exchange calls to the divested telcos (who eventually won use of the trademark "Bell"). Jurisdiction in the case then shifted to Judge Greene (it had previously been with the court in Newark), and the "Baby Bells" fought for more. They won back Yellow Pages, and the term "interexchange" was re-interpreted more loosely. The result was the LATA, representing a compromise between AT&T and the Bells. The LATA boundaries were negotiated by the Bells, AT&T, the DOJ and the court. They were intended to allow metropolitan areas to remain intact, and follow natural community of interest lines. A lot of dickering took place; for example, Massachusetts ended up with only two LATAs, but there had been talk of splitting it in three, with Worcester separate from Boston. New York City got a big LATA plus a corridor exception into NJ. While it was pretty much assumed that inter-LATA calls would be competitive, states retain the right to limit the franchise for intrastate traffic. Intra-LATA may be competitive or monopoly, at state option. Interstate is competitive, LATA or not. But default carrier selection was created for inter-LATA calls; intra-LATA calls not via the local carrier may require dialing 10xxx first. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission