Local access and transport areas

What determines if the telecom service is local or long distance? As part of the agreement between AT&T and the Justice Department at the time of AT&T’s divestiture, this question was one of the most important to be answered. Why? The negotiators on the LEC side of the table and on the AT&T side of the table haggled over who got to carry which calls. Ultimately, the question was: “Who gets to earn the revenue from these calls?” A huge amount of money was at stake. In the end, it was decided to divide the country into 777 LATAs.

LATA boundaries were determined by population and, in most cases, LATAs are the size of two to five counties. In some cases, the LATA is almost the same geographically as the area code, but they are not the same. Most LATAs are contained within a state, but some cross state lines. The Chicago LATA, for example, includes Gary, Indiana. A call from Gary to Chicago is an intralata call, even though it is an interstate call.

In 1984, as part of the agreement between the Justice Department and AT&T, local telephone companies would provide all telephone lines (access) and carry all telephone calls (transport) within the LATA. Calls between LATAs, or interexchange calls, were to be carried by long-distance carriers. Figure (x) shows the two LATAs in Washington state. A call from Spokane to Seattle to Tacoma is an intralata call and should be carried by the local carrier. A call from Seattle to Spokane, however, is an interlata call and is to be carried by the long-distance carrier.


Figure (x): Local access and transport areas in Washington state.
Although the breakup of AT&T was designed to benefit consumers because competition would bring prices down, the situation initially proved to be very confusing for consumers. It was unclear to customers which company was responsible for which service. This was very frustrating, especially for customers whose lines needed to be repaired. Bell and AT&T often blamed each other. Meanwhile, the customer lost valuable phone calls while the carriers were busy pointing fingers instead of repairing lines. Today, local carriers and long-distance carriers still bicker about who is responsible when a customer experiences technical difficulties with the phone lines.