Facilities Solvent Sigecom Facilities Solvent Everest Connections Facilities Solvent RIO Communications Solvent Approximately 10 others Various Solvent Source: Various public sources and press releases. In December 1999, Verizon was granted permission to offer long- distance services in New York. SBC gained entry in Texas in 2000. Since that time the Bell companies have been granted approval to offer in-region interLATA services in the rest of the lower forty-eight states and the Dis- trict of Columbia and now can compete for long-distance customers in all Local Competition under the 1996 Act of these states. 56 Combined with the aggressive wireless competition that has developed, this entry has placed enormous pressure on the large long- distance companies that are also CLECs to respond by offering a bundle of local and long-distance services in these states. 57 As a result, following Bell entry the CLECs' share of lines in the state usually rises much more rapidly than the national average. When the national growth in CLEC lines is compared with that in three of the first states to allow Bell company entry into long distance (Texas, New York, and Massachusetts), each of these states registers a sharp rise in CLEC lines following the Bell company's long-distance entry (fig- ure 4-6). In Texas, virtually all of the entry has been accomplished through UNE-Ps, while in New York approximately 80 percent of the CLEC lines are UNE-Ps. More than half of all UNE-P lines through December 2002 can be found in these two states, which led the way in granting their incumbent carriers the right to compete in long distance. 58 Only Massa- chusetts shows little evidence of reliance on the UNE platform, perhaps because of its high wholesale rate. Recent research shows that the number of entrants using UNE loops in a state is directly related to Section 271 approval for the RBOC in the state.' In one case the number of such entrants rose from five to eight car- riers in the year in which the Bell company gained approval for entry