blems and may even have contributed to the loss of switched access revenues for the incumbent tele- phone companies. Even so, excessive investment at the dawn of the new competitive age was the most important cause of the long-distance debacle of 2001-04. Now, with sharply declining revenues, the independent long- distance companies cannot remain viable competitors in the telecommu- nications marketplace in the long run, even after correcting their account- ing practices in the past decade. The scandals merely accelerated their demise. The Rapid Growth of Wireless Telecommunications he number of wireless or "cellular" subscribers in the United States will soon exceed the number of traditional telephone lines. 1 Most sub- scribers now have a choice of five national cellular carriers. Nevertheless, reg- ulators continue to view the provision of "local" telephone access and exchange services as a local monopoly, thereby requiring government regu- lation. But if nearly every current user of ordinary local telephone service will soon be carrying a wireless handset, and if this wireless service can be purchased from five national vendors, how can local telephone companies enjoy any market power in traditional voice services? Recent Trends in Wireless and Local Wireline Access American consumers clearly have a variety of options for sending and receiving voice and data messages over the global telephone network. For example, they can subscribe to the local incumbent telephone company's service, and in most larger communities they can subscribe to a new com- petitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) or purchase telephone services from the local cable television company. Then there are the wireless services such as Sprint PCS, Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile (VoiceStream), or Nextel, which offer further choice. 2 Pay telephone services are also available, although in general they cannot compete with a home or wireless connec- The Rapid Growth of Wireless Telecommunications tion.³ All of these services allow the consumer to origi