TEC consists of approximately 30 companies networked into a highly effective communications system. Local communication services are comprised of several telephone companies or Local Exchange Carriers. The telephone companies are hometown-based institutions that provide the most modern phone service to communities in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Long distance operations include Interexchange Carriers that provide long distance services, such as 800 service, WATS service, calling cards and private lines to residential and commercial customers. A network comprised of digital switches, fiber optic cable routes and microwave facilities completes TECs national communications network. TEC began in 1923 with the purchase of a local phone company. Bay Springs Telephone Company had a customer base of 120 subscribers and an old magneto switchboard.