 to using wireless service to compete with ILEC fixed services is known as wireless local loop (WLL). This provides retail-level services to homes and smaller businesses using lower-cost radio systems. WLL has proven useful in some developing countries, where fixed loop facilities were not available. But it has been more talk than action in the developed world. Some of this, especially in the United States, may be the result of regulatory policies. Rural ILECs are given huge subsidies to provide wireline service at monthly rates even lower than their low-cost urban counterparts. The subsidy is tied to their level of investment, SO there has been little incentive for them to substitute lower-cost WLL technologies. The United States also has no radio frequencies set aside for WLL. ILECs in the most rustic areas, for whom even subsidized copper loops would be impractical, are allowed to make use of land mobile and cellular telephone frequencies for a primitive analog WLL called basic exchange telecommunications radio service (BETRS). Most other countries, however, have a licensed fixed-wireless spectrum allocation at 3.6 GHz that is available for Although several vendors have produced equipment for this purpose, over- all take rates have been limited. Perhaps the best-known operator was the United Kingdom's Ionica, which gained 60,000 subscribers between 1995 and 1999, when it went into receivership. Ionica had developed a unique WLL tech- nology, which was manufactured for it by Nortel. To be sure, its failure was not entirely the fault of the technology. The company had a high overhead (about a thousand employees by the time it failed) and was reported to be spending money in the style of the day, which is to say extravagantly, on corpo- rate overhead. Some other WLL niche players have remained in business, even in the United States. Western Wireless adapts PCS technology for fixed users, serving a number of rural states; much to the chagrin of the ILECs, it has qualified for "eligible telecommunications carrier" 