. (later known by its acronym, MCI) realized that it could expand its private line services, which were designed to serve companies with multiple offices in distant locations both by connecting those offices together and by providing connections to the local telephone networks surrounding each Networks in Telecommunications location, to provide long-distance service as well. Again after some prodding by the courts, the FCC (1980b) acceded and allowed long-distance competition to emerge. In addition, a new set of services, originally called "enhanced services" and later called "information services," began to emerge that combined computing power with transmission to provide innovative new services that went far beyond traditional voice communications. Some of these services were dial-up services that were the predecessors to the modern Internet, which used analog modems to make it possible for the first time to connect computers to the network. Other services harnessed computing power in the network itself, typically in the newly digitized switches, to provide new services, such as voice mail, call waiting, and caller ID. Because these functions were most efficiently provided through the switch itself, they became known as "vertical switching services." Policymakers soon became concerned that the incumbent local telephone com- panies would be able to use their monopoly control over the local telephone net- works to favor their own proprietary enhanced and information service offerings. As a result, the FCC initiated its first and second Computer Inquiries, which required that any leading local telephone companies wishing to provide data processing or enhanced services do SO through separate corporate subsidiaries and required that those companies serve all enhanced service providers on a nondiscriminatory basis (FCC 1971, 1980a).5 5 The FCC later concluded in its third Computer Inquiry that the costs of the separate subsidiary requirement outweighed the benefits and that nonstructural safeguards could protect agai