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From: goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA
Message-ID: <9847@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Jul 90 13:51:11 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 494, Message 1 of 10


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