d by regulation, and then dashed on the coals of the fires of competition (see chapter 6). Wireless Communications Not too long ago, wireless rates were SO high that few persons would choose to own a cell phone. Today there are about 170 million wireless sub- scribers, or more than one cell phone for every two men, women, and chil- dren in the United States. 32 Within the next year, the country is likely to have more wireless telephones than wired ones. Opening Telecom Markets: The 1996 Telecommunications Act The explosion of wireless telephony began at roughly the same time as the experiment with local entry into wired telecommunications in the United States. The major difference in these two revolutions is that the wireless one was essentially unregulated whereas local wireline competition was heavily regulated, as described in the preceding paragraphs. Under the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, the FCC was instructed to launch this competition by auctioning new spectrum. Federal and state regulators were not supposed to regulate wireless rates unless it could be shown that wireless carriers had a "dominant" market position (for details, see chapters 3 and 7). Today five major, national wireless carriers compete aggressively with one another and with wire-based telecommunications companies, and wireless rates go unregulated. 33 The 1996 act had little direct effect on wireless carriers, except in the area of interconnection charges. Setting the prices paid to terminate calls on wireless handsets is a controversial regulatory issue in most countries. Unlike the United States, most countries do not allow wireless carriers to charge their subscribers for incoming calls. Instead, the carriers are paid for such calls through access charges levied on the carrier through whose net- work the call originates. In the United States, wireless subscribers are charged for both inbound and outbound calls. Under the 1996 act, all such local calls are subject to the reciprocal compensation rule, meaning that wireless car