arts of a broadly defined marketplace; in con- trast, ILECs grew up with that mission. The many changes in the telecommuni- cations industry's regulatory regime were driven by technology and had to be met by appropriately revised business thinking. Inappropriately revised business methodologies caused absurdities of overinvestment and led to the meltdown. Companies that sat tight on their dollars and stuck to conservative financial practices generally survived the meltdown; many prospered. There is no shame in being the survivor that gets the resulting bargains. Old Dinosaurs Die Hard Much of the telecom boom investment was spent on companies whose goal was to displace well-established competitors, be they equipment manufacturers, long distance companies or local exchange carriers. Entrepreneurs and their investors often evaluated these companies' products and operations and decided that they were vulnerable, often because they were behind the curve on technology. What they failed to count on was the market inertia supporting existing vendors. Cus- tomers had existing relationships and were often slow to risk new suppliers. Ma Bell's PBX business led the market for some years after Carterfone, even though its products were often inferior and costlier; it took the Computer II decision, Focusing on the Bottom Line forbidding the local exchange carriers from distributing such equipment, to end that dominance. Millions of consumers stuck with AT&T's long distance serv- ice after divestiture simply because they were not interested in choosing a replacement; they did not even switch to a less-costly AT&T plan. AT&T bene- fited by this inertia. And while the coming of CLECs was greeted enthusiasti- cally by perhaps a quarter of the total market, which was looking for any credible alternative to the old monopolies, many more subscribers simply did not care enough to switch unless the offer was truly compelling. And that included factoring in the risk of dealing with a new, not-yet-well-established vendor. On occasions th