What is a LATA / InterLATA / Interstate / Intrastate?
A.What is a LATA? LATA stands for Local Transport and Access Area. A LATA is a contiguous geographic area. LATA is your local calling area. Therefore intraLATA means the same thing – your local calling area (inside a particular LATA). A LATA can cover an entire state so all the state will be considered intraLATA, and all calls within that state will be considered local calls (usually for small states). Most states have several LATAs. InterLATA refers to calls between 2 LATAs. These can be 2 LATAs located in the same state, or 2 LATAs located in different states. Therefore long distance calls. Interstate calls are calls between two states. These calls can also be considered interLATA because they are calls between 2 LATAs. Intrastate calls are calls within the same state. This term is rather confusing because calls within the same state can be either interLATA or intraLATA.
