 in subscribers. Thus their total market value has nearly trebled. In each case, however, the survivors' market value per line or subscriber appears to be at least as great as the reproduction cost of their assets, hardly a condition typical of a sector in "crisis." The actual crisis occurred in those subsectors created mainly by regulation, nurtured by regulators, and pro- pelled by speculators. The wireless, cable, and integrated telephone carri- ers may have been swept along in some of the exuberance, but they never tumbled into the subsequent abyss. A Look Back and a Look Forward Figure 10-2. Market Value per Subscriber or Line for the three Groups of Survivors, 1996 and 2003 Dollars per subscriber or line Wireless Bell companies Cable TV 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 December 1996 December 2003 Source: Yahoo finance. From Regulation to Protection? The architecture erected by U.S. telecom regulators is now crumbling. They have no strategy for continuing to prop up failing local entrants since the courts ruled that the 1996 act does not entitle entrants to access to the entire incumbent network at large wholesale discounts. The FCC has been unable to fashion a broadband policy that applies symmetrically to cable modem services and incumbent telephone companies' DSL services. And the FCC and the states are scrambling to deal with the obvious threat of VoIP, which can be offered to U.S. broadband subscribers by carriers located in any country in the world, perhaps without all of the taxes and surcharges placed on traditional telephone service in the name of "univer- sal service. "7 Students of regulation are generally wary of regulated competition. Air- line, trucking, railroad, and petroleum regulation in earlier decades became a form of cartel management, keeping prices artificially high and entry low in order to protect competitors. 8 In all likelihood, U.S. telecom regulators A Look Back and a Look Forward will soon be faced with demands to erect an umbrella over prices, much as the International Comme