y. A CAP's network had a backbone route, which typically ran down major city streets and then out to suburban office parks. But it then needed lateral routes into buildings, many of which were not quite along the way. This added to the amount of trenching needed. During the boom years, as the CAPs spent other people's money at a prodigious rate, many cities developed regulations to limit the disruption caused by all of this fiber installation. Some- times this amounted to requiring the CAP with the trenching permit to allow others to share its trench, SO that the street would be less likely to need further digging. But was this worthwhile? It seems likely that the CAPs each told their fin- anciers that they would take a sizeable market share away from the Big Bad Bells, whose overpriced access and data services were a drain on businesses. But it seems just as likely that the CAPs did not count on each other's dividing the take. Furthermore, the Bells began to request pricing flexibility. The FCC and some states allowed them to lower prices in hotly competitive markets. This slowed down the attrition of the RBOCs' biggest customers and resulted in even less business for the CAPs. So the CAPs were far from profitable. Fortunately for them, the boom was underway, and profit was simply not considered important. Special access tariffs in general did not fall, though-they remained the "sucker rate" for subscribers who had no alternative. Competitive Access Providers, the Costly Way to Local Competition The Telecom Act Opens Local Service Competition The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed on February 1 and was rap- idly signed by President Clinton. A compromise reached after lengthy wran- gling, all sides rapidly embraced it. This was widely viewed as the "big bang" that would reshape telecommunications. "I believe this bill means American companies will dominate the field of global telecommunications," said Rep. Jack Fields, chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommu- nications and Finances [4]. Th