 telecommunications services, and allow everyone to have a telephone. At the time that the Act passed, the U.S. was building its telecommunications infrastructure. The companies that supplied the funds (primarily AT&T) wanted to be assured of a reasonable return on their investment. Permitting the construction of competitive networks would jeopardize an investor's profitability. Moreover, duplicating infrastructure was wasteful. As long as regulation ensured that a single operator (carrier) did not engage in predatory practices, one network per area would suffice. The funds required to build regional telephone systems could be spread across more customers. Universal Service would be the result. For more than sixty years, the structure held; the U.S. enjoyed (arguably) the best telephone system in the world. It benefited one organization enormously: AT&T. However, in 1974, the Department of Justice (DoJ) accused AT&T of anti-competitive practices and filed an antitrust suit. After years of maneuvering, AT&T and the DOJ (Department of Justice) reached an out-of-court settlement. Dubbed the Modified Final Judgment, or MFJ, it became effective on January 1, 1984. It separated the Bell Operating Companies (BOCs) from AT&T and grouped them into seven holding companies. Today these holding companies (which now number five, not seven) are loosely referred to as the Regional Bell Operating Companies or RBOCs. The MFJ permitted the RBOCs to provide local telephone service as monopolies, but precluded them from providing long distance service. AT&T became, exclusively, a long distance carrier; the MFJ banned it from providing any type of local service. To distinguish between long distance and local service, Local Access and Transport Areas (LATAs) were established. A RBOC or independent LEC could carry a call that originated and terminated within a LATA. Once a call crossed a LATA boundary, a long distance carrier (inter-exchange carrier or IXC) was required to haul it. Circuit-switched Networks Because of the MFJ, the RBOC