 AT&T to allow MCI to interconnect with its local telephone network and the Seventh Circuit held that AT&T's refusal to grant MCI access to its local telephone network constituted a violation of the essential facilities doctrine. 8 The desire to promote competition in long distance also underlay the 1984 antitrust decree that required AT&T to spin off its local telephone subsidiaries and required the newly independent regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) to provide "equal access" to all long distance carriers (Modification of Final Judgment, 552. F. Supp. at 195-200). The same concerns also underlay a key provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which prevented RBOCs from offering long- distance service until they could demonstrate that they had satisfied a fourteen- point competitive checklist designed to show that they had opened their local telephone networks to competition (47 U.S.C. § 271(2)(B)). Concerns about vertical exclusion also arose with respect to information services, which are services that combine transmission with computing power to provide more sophisticated services that transcend mere voice communications. 9 For some information services, the additional computing power is located in the telephone company's central office switch, as with services such as caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and voice mail. Other information services rely on computing power connected to the network via modems or other devices, such as check and credit card verification systems, electronic data interchange, database access services, and Internet access services. As was the case with CPE and long distance, policy makers have long been concerned that the Bell System would use its control over the physical network to discriminate against information services offered by independent providers. As a result, the FCC instituted a series of Computer Inquiries to protect independent information service providers against the threat of vertical exclusion (discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8). Similar 