Local Access and Transport Areas (LATAs)

The US is divided into almost 200 LATAs, also known as regional calling areas, which provide the framework for competition in the long distance industry. Calls outside your local service area but within your regional calling area are designated "intraLATA". All other calls, including international calls, are designated "interLATA". Thus calls can be classified as either local, regional (intraLATA), or long distance (interLATA).

Generally speaking, your local telco (also called a local exchange carrier or LEC) can provide local and regional service but not long distance service. On the other hand, long distance companies (also called interexchange carriers or IXCs) can provide only regional and long distance service. Presubscription allows you to designate which carrier(s) will handle your direct dialed calls. Although regional (intraLATA) and long distance (interLATA) presubscriptions are often to the same carrier, they can be assigned to different carriers.

In order to make the best choices for presubscriptions, it helps to know which of your calls are regional and which are long distance. Unfortuately, that's often not so obvious, particularly in the eastern half of the US. Since LATAs were derived from metropolitan statistical areas they usually don't have easily recognized boundaries like states. And most LATAs can't be defined by area codes. For example, the Washington, DC LATA includes DC as well as parts of MD and VA and parts of a dozen area codes.

The table below lists all LATAs. To find out whether you make intraLATA and/or interLATA calls, look up your numbers with the City Finder. You can also find links to LATA maps here. Often, however, the best place to find this information is in the front of your local white pages.