Local Access and Transport Area LATA
US
A regional boundary from the Bell-System breakup that historically separated local from long-distance calling.
A Local Access and Transport Area (LATA) is a geographic region established after the 1984 divestiture of the Bell System to delineate the areas within which a local exchange carrier could carry calls. Calls within a LATA were "intraLATA"; calls between LATAs ("interLATA") were handed to long-distance carriers.
LATAs remain a reference geography in numbering and routing data, though their regulatory significance has diminished. Each rate center falls within a LATA.
Common misconception.
LATAs are not area codes and do not align with them. A single area code can span multiple LATAs and vice-versa.