ken@sharkey.cc.umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) (06/15/90)
I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but the term LATA is rapidly disappearing from use. The local phone books no longer refer to it, instead using the words "Local Serving Area". Not that I'm sad to see it go! I always thought it was rather pretentious. Ken
0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) (06/16/90)
In Digest v10, iss434, Jongsma writes: >I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but the term LATA is >rapidly disappearing from use. The local phone books no longer refer >to it, instead using the words "Local Serving Area". >Not that I'm sad to see it go! I always thought it was rather >pretentious. Sorry to disappoint you, Ken, but LATA is not going away. It is and remains the "official" name of an area that has access points to the big outside world of interstate common carriers. The term 'Local Serving Area" is a subdivision of a LATA, usually caused by the presence of a "little guy" Independent Telco that gets its connections to the "outside world" of interstate communications via the nearby "big guy" (usually Bell) Telco. The "Local Serving Area" should be found to be the territory of within which no toll charges are applied for a "local" rated phone call. Another case may exist when a LATA crossed a state line (much more common than some Digest participants seemed to have thought a while back. My current example: Mississippi has incursions of LATAs from other states at 5 points on its boundaries; places where historically a telephone exchange from a town in the neighboring state had grown into MS years ago. Similarly, the Alabama/Georgia border has LATA incursions across state lines. So, dislike the term LATA as much as you may, it still exists and is different than a Local Serving Area. Sorry!