nformation, the opportunity, and the justification you need to turn your organization into exactly what you want it to be. How CAN THIS Book HELP You? It is our hope that you find this book practical and insightful. Our goal, from the outset, was to create a book that addresses the real problems faced by wireless companies dealing with churn issues and to provide those companies with a guide to: Diagnose their current churn situation Anticipate when, where, and how churn will appear in the markets Create a practical, immediate, effective response to churn situations Develop an organization equipped to manage churn situa- tions Build a churn management system to support churn man- agement Evaluate and implement effective churn strategies THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY This then brings us to the real crux of the issue from the reader's perspective. Churn is a distinctively unique phenomenon in the wireless industry, and this industry is a fairly exclusive group. There are less than one thousand wireless companies in the world, spread across every corner of the planet and ranging in size from the very small to the very large. eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook Wireless Telecommunications (more than 1000 carriers worldwide) Over US$ 10 Billion Less than US$ 1/2 Billion US$ 1 to 10 Billion US$ 1/2 to 1 Billion Figure 1-5: Sizes of Wireless Service Providers 1998 the International Telecommunications Union reported that there were approximately 610 wireless providers in the world. These companies have revenues ranging from: 42 percent that generate less than half a billion U.S. dollars of revenue; to 29 percent that make between half and one billion; to 23 percent that make between one and ten billion; and 6 percent bringing in over ten billion a year. At the same time, industry research shows that as of 1998 there were less than 300 CLECs and about 300 long distance carriers. Depending on how you measure the growth in this industry, there are only somewhere between 2,000 to 3,000 carriers covering all fac