What does “Available to Regional Bell customers only” mean?
A. Many carriers and resellers are now limiting the availability of their services or best rates to those residing in areas that were once served by The Bell System, prior to its breakup into what are now SBC, BellSouth, Qwest, and Verizon. Long distance carriers are charged less money by these phone companies to complete their calls than most of the smaller companies do, so limiting availability to those areas allows them to pass on lower rates to their customers. Because of the many mergers that have happened since the original break up of the Bell System, determining if you are in an area served by one of the “Baby Bells” has become considerably more difficult, unfortunately. Here is a good rule of thumb though… If you are a local telephone customer of BellSouth, SBC, Qwest or parts of Verizon that were formerly Bell Atlantic territory (excluding parts of Verizon that formerly belonged to GTE, ConTel, or others), then you are likely in a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) terr
