l. The resulting seven companies were known as the RBOCs, or, more commonly, the Baby Bells. AT&T remained a long-distance car- rier, or IXC, during the divestiture. However, the Telecommunications Deregula- tion Act of 1996 allowed RBOCs (also called LECs) and long-distance companies to sell local, long-distance, and international services, making these lines very fuzzy. Each of the original seven companies was given a region in which it was allowed to do business. The regions are shown in Figure 20-6. Most of the original RBOCs are now part of SBC (formerly Southwestern Bell), which also acquired AT&T, bringing the entire dizzying affair one step closer to a monopoly again. Here's what's become of the seven original RBOCs: Bell Atlantic Bell Atlantic merged with NYNEX in 1996 to become Verizon. Southwestern Bell Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC in 1995. SBC acquired PacBell in 1996, and has subsequently acquired Ameritech, Southern New England Tel- ecommunications, and AT&T. SBC adopted the name AT&T following the acquisition of that company. NYNEX NYNEX merged with Bell Atlantic in 1996 to become Verizon. Pacific Bell (PacBell) PacBell was acquired by SBC in 1996. BellSouth BellSouth has been acquired by SBC/AT&T. Ameritech Ameritech was acquired by SBC in 1998. Telecom Glossary US West Ameritech NYNEX Bell Atlantic Pacific Bell (Pac Bell) BellSouth Southwestern Figure 20-6. RBOC regions US West US West was acquired by Qwest Communications in 2000. Smart jack A smart jack is a device that terminates a digital circuit. It is considered "smart" because the phone company can control it remotely. Smart jacks also offer test points for equipment such as BERT testers. T1s are usually terminated at smart jacks. Larger installations have racks of smart jacks called smart jack racks. SONET SONET (pronounced like bonnet) is short for synchronous optical network. SONET is an ANSI standard for fiber-optic transmission systems. The equivalent European standard is called the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH). SON