Any of the 22 original companies (or their successors) that were created from the breakup of AT&T in 1983. They were reorganized into seven Bell regional holding companies (RHCs). (There are now five.) The divestiture distributed the right to provide local telephone service in a given geographic area. Before this, companies had existed as subsidiaries of AT&T and were called the "Bell System." The breakup was designed to create competition at both the local and long-distance service levels. As a group, companies that offer local telephone service are legally referred to as "local-exchange carriers." BOCs are not allowed to manufacture equipment and were initially not allowed to provide long-distance service. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave them permission to engage in long-distance business under certain circumstances.