eholds would be willing to buy a wireless plan that offers 600 "anytime" minutes per month for $50 and drop their fixed-line service. Between 29 and 44 per- cent of the households surveyed would be willing to pay $60 for 2,000 min- utes a month and drop their fixed-line service. 33 Given the enormous shift to wireless in long-distance calling (see chap- ter 6), it is not surprising that some households are now dropping wireline service altogether, and many more say that they would be willing to do SO. Unless the household relies on a digital subscriber line (DSL) for broad- band service, there is little need to keep a wireline connection once house- hold members have a wireless phone. 34 As service quality wireless nections improves, wireless-wireline substitution will become even more intense. A Competitive Equilibrium? None of the five remaining national carriers shown in table 7-1 has a dominant share of wireless subscribers. Even after adding Qwest's sub- scribers to Sprint's total, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) of con- centration for the five largest carriers is only about 2550. 35 Given the fact that wireless services compete with wire-based services, this index over- states any market power of the carriers. Moreover, given the dynamic expansion of the market, the rapid technological change in the sector, and the expanding array of services, it is unlikely that a market structured with approximately four equal-size competitors would generate collusive behavior. Concerned that the U.S. wireless sector is too competitive, many finan- cial analysts have long advocated mergers among some of the participants. Because wireless services are growing rapidly, carriers have been forced to The Rapid Growth of Wireless Telecommunications expand their network capacity and spend large sums on attracting and keeping subscribers. As a result, many wireless carriers continue to gener- ate rather modest profits, and some even report losses in their current income statements. The sharp decline in wireless stock prices 