The BOC relies on OSS to market its own services, and the 1996 Act rightly requires the BOC to give its competitors nondiscriminatory access to the same systems. Compliance with the other checklist items is equally crucial to make competition possible. If my grandmother had to change the phone number she has had for the past 50 years in order to change service providers, that would be a major disincentive for her to switch phone companies. The same is true for businesses. Of course not.
Number portability is crucial to competition.
Another example is access to 911 service. Competitors will rely on the BOC for access to 911 service. If new entrants are prevented from offering service that is meaningfully comparable to that offered by the incumbent Bell Company, there would be no way for these new competitors to win customers. In this way, the competitiveness of new entrants depends upon the willingness of the incumbents to abide by the checklist. Section 271 seeks to eliminate a BOC's incentive to make local entry difficult, by prohibiting the BOC from offering long distance service until it has opened the local market.