CLECs are basically brand-new phone companies that were started in order to take advantage of the new legislation. Under the Telecom Act, the RBOCs are forced to provision customers over to the CLECs if requested. For starters, as with any monopoly, service tends to be poor. For example, the RBOCs are notorious for taking several weeks to install a new telephone line at the request of a customer. CLECs, on the other hand, may get the same installation done in 10-15 days.
Pricing is another big issue.
RBOCs have been used to having a large pricing umbrella and the commensurate overhead costs associated with being monopolies. Because of these advantages, CLECs have already won over millions of phone lines from the RBOCs. This highlights the huge opportunities for this new breed of telephone companies. With the explosion of the internet, the amount of web content has increased dramatically over the last few years. These companies basically build and manage the server-filled data centers that house the precious internet content.