 charge reductions contributed more than three-quarters of the reduction in interstate long-distance rates over this nine-year period, far more than may be attributed to other forces, including competition. 17 This is now changing due to wireless and Bell company competition. The competition from wireless has not only reduced traditional long- distance carriers' rates, but it has begun to shift substantial traffic from these carriers to wireless operators. For several years, the decline in wireless rates and increasing subscriber penetration had been reducing the average cellular bill. However, the introduction of the nationwide pricing plans reversed this trend, presumably because increased usage offset the contin- uing fall in wireless rates. For a rough estimate of the shift in long-distance minutes from wireline to wireless carriers, consult figure 6-1 once again. Given that the nationwide The Death of Distance and of the Long-Distance Carriers wireless plans had not become pervasive until mid- or late 1999, the gap between predicted and actual terminating access minutes (a good proxy for conversation minutes) until 1999 cannot be due to wireless competition. 18 However, the gap opened dramatically in 2000, rising to 30 percent of ter- minating wireline minutes. By 2002 actual minutes were 46 percent below the predicted values, suggesting that 46 percent of minutes had somehow disappeared from the traditional fixed-wire network. Because the new wireless plans have diverted a substantial number of originating minutes from the wireline network as well, the analysis of the wireless carriers' effects on long-distance traffic should focus on total inter- state switched access minutes, not just the terminating minutes shown in figure 6-1. When I simulate the movement of total interstate switched access minutes using real GDP, real interstate revenue per minute, and a time trend to capture the growth of "special access," I find that predicted switched access minutes exceed actual minutes by nearly 50 percent in 2002