11.   Bellcore, the research arm of the seven regional phone companies, will be sold to a California firm, a sale forced by increased rivalry among its owners.

12.   BellSouth has been slower than other regional phone companies to roll out DSL.

13.   Big regional phone companies like BellSouth have been arguing all along that calls to the Internet are long-distance.

14.   A new high-tech coalition plans to ask federal regulators this week to free regional phone companies from the obligation to share new high-speed Internet connections with competitors.

15.   A U.S. federal appeals court threw out contentious federal pricing rules designed to open local phone markets to competition, handing a victory to the regional local phone companies.

16.   Aleksandr Vokhmin, chief financial officer of Perm Uralsviazinform, a regional phone company in Russia, pulled a shimmering blue card from his wallet.

17.   But the challenge they pose is negligible compared with the problem the cable unit would face if the Bell regional phone giants again became serious about television.

18.   But the picture began to cloud in the last year, when the interactive technology arrived courtesy of the Baby Bell regional phone companies.

19.   But the Federal Communications Commission bars regional phone companies in the United States from entering the long-distance market.

20.   Currently, regional phone companies are mandated to resell their telephone services to rivals at discount prices.