veryone's conversations. Although such comedic stereotypes were meant to be jokes, the reason that most people found them SO funny was because they reflected their real perceptions of the nature of how the phone company treated them. Pre-Competitive Shopping Cycle In the days before competition and wireless, the consumer's shopping cycle was simple. Consumers bought a new phone when they moved. A telephone was an essential part of any home or office, Chapter 5 and SO whenever you changed your home or office you changed your telephone as well. As far as shopping behavior, there really was none. The government set the rates you paid, and you had no real choice when it came to who your provider would be. While this arrangement has some obvious disadvantages as far as competitive pricing is concerned, let's not ignore the positives about this cycle. This environment made shopping for telephone services easy. You had very few decisions to make. The big decisions were deciding how many phones to buy, what color they would be, and which room would get which phone. Other than that, everything was taken care of for you. This created an atmosphere where consumers really didn't have to develop any kind of criteria for appraising the quality of the services they were receiving. None of the normal shopping filters, factors, and timing issues were ever addressed. In a sense, consumers were blind to issues they would be sensitive to in a competitive marketplace. The Competitive Telecom Shopping Cycle In today's marketplace there are more and more options for consumers. New technologies, new connectivity options, and new companies bring a dizzying assortment of choices to the consumer's attention. The Wireline Cycle The traditional wireline business is by far the least affected by the current competitive environment. Although long distance and wireless have become embroiled in competitive activity, the wireline vendors have remained largely untouched. In countries all over the world, wireline companies have maintained their incu