A discussion is provided of growing interest in antitrust issues and carrier competition in the competitive carrier industry. Some industry mavens are convinced that the four remaining Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs Qwest, SBC, Verizon, and BellSouth) are increasingly coordinating their activities in order to eliminate local service rivals. The carriers strongly deny the claim, and even those who most strongly believe the carriers are coordinating efforts say there is nothing close to a smoking gun that proves it. Dwayne Goldsmith CEO for Inflexion Communications and previously president of Ameritech, which is now part of SBC, says the current market is an oligopoly, in which phone companies are protecting their regions, and where there is an implied agreement that they will not challenge incumbents to be in particular areas. Dozens of carriers use UNE-P (Unbundled Network Element-Platform) to offer local service to end users, but RBOCS do not make use of it because they regard UNE-P as having dubious legal status due to continual challenges by the D.C. Circuit Court and its appearance as an all-arbitrage play that cannot be sustained over the long term. The intermodal approach, in which wireless carriers, RBOCs, and cable companies all provide local telephony, is regarded by many as a way for RBOCs to compete out-of-region, because RBOCs could possibly show a profit.