One of the reasons that Bell was broken up in the first place was because they wouldn't allow competitors with cheaper long-haul rates for long distance calls to patch into their interconnects and thus offer their services to Bell customers. It sounds like as a result of the settlement that broke up the monopoly the baby bells had some sort of restriction on providing cross-country or inter-regional service. The author is contending that the 1996 legislation, lobbied for by the telecom industry, was more about removing that restriction than actually motivating them to provide better service.

It used to be that phone calls were tiered, in that you got free "local" access, but it cost more to call out of your immediate area. The baby bells handled local access, but you used a different company to get your per minute long distance calls to work. There were ads on tv all the time trying to get you to switch your long distance provider.