snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:
>> Can somebody tell me what LATA is?
> Local Access and Transportation Area. It's a term from the 1982
> Modification of Final Judgment -- the consent decree breaking up AT&T
> -- that represented the "exchange area" for purposes of local
> telephone service. The LATA is the area within which a Bell local
> telephone company could transport calls. Anything beyond the LATA had
> to be handed off to an Interexchange Carrier, or IXC. Some LATAs were
> very large, and as a result, even though the intraLata traffic was
> deemed "local" for purposes of the MFJ and could be provided by the
> Bell LEC, it was actually divided up into multiple exchange areas for
> purposes of call rating. This led to "IntraLata toll" or
> "short-distance" calls that the Bell could handle even though they
> were considered toll calls, with a per-minute charge.
Yes, I remember when it was a toll to call from Warwick to parts of Coventry, RI for the longest time. Warwick is geographically right next to Coventry so it never made sense unless you understood that New England Telephone never though Coventry would experience growth and thus the trunk capacity to Coventry 397 was extremely tight.
Of course some interesting changes have taken place in calling areas. But with the advent of VoIP it doesn't matter where you are. In essence my LATA is the entirety of North America. Pretty damned cool if you ask me.