1.  After reading the story in the Echo I now realise it can happen on local lines.

2.  A technology called ISDN that digitizes a local line and increases the traffic it can carry holds the best promise for impatient consumers.

3.  Cellular-phone providers have to pay NTT for use of the local lines needed to make the final connection for most calls.

4.  Competitors must pay a fee for connecting their own services to the local lines, a practice that has drawn fierce complaints from DDI Corp. and Japan Telecom Corp.

5.  Direct foreign investment is also minimal, with only one Sino-foreign joint venture, a local line in Zhejiang.

6.  Having anticipated that the profitability of the international calling market would decline, PLDT has tried to increase its dependence on local calls by increasing its local line network.

7.  PLDT has tried to shift its focus to local calls by increasing its local line network in anticipation the international calling market becoming less profitable.

8.  Sprint and other long-distance companies fear that Bell will have an unfair advantage winning long-distance customers because the company controls the vast majority of local lines.

9.  The first local lines are scheduled to be operational by August.

10.  To operate in Mexico most competitors have to use Telmex local lines to make the final connections on long distance and international calls.