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Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) is a regulatory term in telecommunications for the local telephone company. In the United States, wireline telephone companies are divided into two large categories: long distance (interexchange carrier, or IXCs) and local (local exchange carrier, or LECs). This structure is a result of 1984 divestiture of then-regulated monopoly carrier American Telephone & Telegraph. Local telephone companies at the time of the divestiture are also known as Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILEC). The divestiture created local exchange carriers for the management of local telephone lines and switches, and provisioning of local phone services within their business area, as well as the long distance calls originating or terminating in their business area. The vast majority of the United States are served by LECs called Baby Bells, or RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies). The rest of the United States, most commonly in rural or outlying suburban areas, are served by independent LECs, known in the industry simply as the "independents." Although independent companies typically serve these areas, RBOC LECs still have vast territories of low population density regions of the country. Therefore independents generally exist as pockets of territory within a greater RBOC region. Popular independents are Frontier Communications, and Windstream Communications. Local calls are defined as calls originating and terminating within a local access and transport area (LATA) which is defined by the Federal Communications Commission. All the Baby Bells, as well as other LECs, typically operate businesses in more than one LATA yet their services of local telephone calls are still defined by LATA boundaries, not their business areas. ==Residential Local Exchange Services== The following information applied to residential local telephone service in the Detroit, Michigan area during the 1970s and 1980s. Much about this subject has changed dramatically since that time, and continues to do so. A local exchange carrier is a carrier of telephone calls and other communication services carried by telephone lines. A local exchange is generally either an exchange within one's own LATA or in an immediately adjacent LATA. A call that is neither local nor long distance is called a local toll call. A local exchange carrier normally sells package deals that include local and local toll calls. Local calls are customarily billed in by the call, or in blocks of calls. Residential local exchange carrier service typically charges , where is the monthly minimum and covers the first calls, is the price per local call, and is the total quantity of calls consumed. Local toll calls are each billed at , where is minimum charge for a local toll call, is the per-minute charge, and is the duration of the call in minutes. Local toll calls are traditionally grouped into two price ranges, called "near zone" and "far zone", with values of and higher for far zone. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Local exchange carrier」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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