The Telecommunications Act of 1996 specifies three ways that competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) in the United States can provide competing local telephone service: build and interconnect, bundled wholesale purchase, and unbundled service. Securing unbundled service from the incumbent LECs (ILECs) essentially was a matter of selecting, on a case-by-case basis, from a menu of unbundled network elements (UNEs), including local loops, local exchange and tandem switches (including software features), interoffice transmission facilities, signaling and call-related database facilities, operations support systems (OSSs) and information, and operator and directory assistance facilities. When all elements from the menu are chosen, this approach is known as Unbundled Network Elements-Platform (UNE-P) and the effect is the same as the bundled service, but the total price typically is at a discount of 40