mbent and dominant positions as they have maintained their ownership of the "final 100 yards." (In other words, they own the wireline connection between the home and their switches). For the wireline business the shopping cycle is still what is has always been. The competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) have made significant inroads. Their presence can be felt in certain countries eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook and in certain niche markets in those countries. However, on a global basis, the CLECs have yet to create a serious threat to the basic phone service that is the backbone of the wireline industry. The Long Distance Cycle Although wireline companies have been able to continue with an almost business-as-us-usual attitude, long distance carriers have been forced to learn new ways of doing things. The typical pattern for the introduction of long distance to a market is for the government to provide licenses to competitors and then to create conditions that make it easy for those competitors to begin to accumulate market share. When competition comes to a market, consumers are actually forced to change their long distance shopping cycle. Imagine how this looks from the perspective of the average consumer. At a minimum a consumers that never had to make a long distance carrier decision before now have to make an explicit choice. Although they can certainly choose to keep whatever current provider they had before competition, the decision still has to be made. Consumers are suddenly forced to choose a provider when they never had any choice before. They haves to learn how to shop, compare prices, and choose a provider. In exchange for all of this they get some pricing options. In the short term, deregulation creates an artificial shopping cycle for long distance consumers. It is clear, however, that consumers have developed no truly identifiable shopping cycle yet. Since they can keep the same long distance carrier wherever they move to, and since the service doesn't get old or spo