Inter-Exchange Carriers

IXCs

AT&T was dedicated to providing only long distance services after divestiture, while the local telephone services were provided by the RBOCs formerly owned by the Bell company. In order to organize the amount of companies now participating in the telecom industry, regions were defined for each at the time of divestiture.

The competition that arose among the Telco companies made way for the appearance of a new market, namely that of the Inter-exchange Carriers (IECs or IXCs). The IXCs are the long distance carriers. Whereas the RBOCs and other local telephone companies provide local telephone service, the IXC is a telephone company that provides connections between these local companies in different geographic areas.

AT&T was the first company to provide such services and was later joined by other IXCs such as legacy MCI and Sprint.