For many years, each local telephone company in the United States was a monopoly in its region of the country and that remains true in some other countries.
Local fixed line calls were the dominant category of telephone calls in the UK throughout this period, rising from 72 billion minutes in 1995 to around 90 billion minutes.
Or I need to contact somebody and get some things done, and I call the local place, and they say: " Oh, sorry, we can't help you. You have to call HQ" .