Local telephone service is the provision of

telecommunications network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, mes ...

s and services within a limited geographic region. Traditionally, local telephone service was provided by small companies based in given cities and towns as opposed to larger, national or international companies.

Telephone call A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party. First telephone call The first telephone call was made on March 10, 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell demonstrated his ability to " ...

s outside of the local area provided for by these companies were patched through long-distance networks that were, until de-regulation, operation mainly by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

. Some providers of local services were regional Bell operating companies, but not all local telephone companies were a

regional Bell operating company The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...

or tied to one at the local level, especially after de-regulation of 1996. After de-regulation, these regional Bell operating companies continued providing the same technical services despite being under a different type of corporate structure. Many communities in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

had local telephone companies and in rural areas, up until around the early 1980s (perhaps later in some cases) party lines were commonplace. The local telephone company was responsible for providing equipment and services to their customers in most cases although over time, as technology changed, so did the nature of the technical services thus provided. At one time telephones were leased from the local phone company rather than sold outright to customers. Many customers had

rotary telephone A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone number ...

s that were leased prior to the 1980s. Customers in some instances ended up paying tenfold the value of their phones as they leased them for decades—though the lease system was not set up to encourage this situation. Local telephone companies also provided PBX (''Private Branch Exchange'') services for local businesses that needed these switchboard and internal telecommunications services. Local telephone companies more recently become involved in providing

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

by DSL and

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

services. Local telephone wires terminate at the central office (

telephone exchange telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syste ...

), a structure containing the hardware needed to switch calls among local lines and long-distance networks. Thus, when a call was placed by a customer outside the local calling area, the central office would switch the call to the respective long-distance network. As technology advanced, central offices offered more services and their technical abilities improved. Services such as

Caller ID Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is ...

, call return call-waiting,

three-way calling In human sexuality, a threesome is commonly understood as "a sexual interaction between three people whereby at least one engages in physical sexual behaviour with both the other individuals". Though ''threesome'' most commonly refers to sexua ...

, and voice-mail were first offered via central office-based technology although later PBXs also provided them. The role of the local phone company includes serving a given community and interfacing with the large long-distance carriers. Prior to the advent of cell phones, most phone calls were made via

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

s and local companies were thereby involved in some capacity in this communication.

Deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a r ...

and especially cell phones have reduced the need for local telephone services while

Digital subscriber line Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric d ...

Internet service and other services give local companies new roles in the telecommunications industry.

External links

FCC Carrier Search
{{DEFAULTSORT:Local Telephone Service Telephone services

See also

External links