ing steadily.40 Furthermore, these are not residential cus- tomers whose telecom spending is atypically high. 41 Also, the entrants do not appear to offer residences much lower rates than the ILEC rates for their connections. The average CLEC local bill in the first two quarters of 2001 was $35 a month for CLEC customers and $32 a month for ILEC customers. 42 A linear regression of the monthly local bill on the various calling fea- tures and the number of lines finds that the prices charged by CLECs for calling features, such as call waiting or caller ID, are strikingly similar to those charged by the ILECs in the first two quarters of 2001. 43 After net- ting out these features and the number of lines, the average charge for local residential services was slightly higher for entrants ($25) than for incum- bents ($23). The average number of features chosen by CLEC customers (2.25) was slightly lower than the number chosen by incumbent-carrier customers (2.40). In short, the entrants did not attract households with a greater propensity to spend on telecom services, nor did they appear to offer residential subscribers measurably lower rates. In light of these facts, one might reasonably ask why these subscribers bothered to shift to CLECs at all. Of course, the rates offered business subscribers may have been sub- stantially below those offered by the incumbents. 44 Given the limited penetration of the new entrants into the residential market, it is difficult to estimate a model of consumer choice of local carrier through an econometric model. In addition, it is difficult to ascertain the availability of CLEC services in various parts of the country.4 How, then, can one determine if a household that subscribes to an incumbent carrier's services makes this choice because there is no alternative or because it is unaware of any alternative? To explore this question, I use a logit model of household choice between a CLEC and an ILEC as its local carrier for the first and second quarters of 2001. I focus on urban househ