s. We do not show the results-just the inputs- since the results are spread over three dozen very large worksheets. 10.1 Market Background A startup carrier first needs to decide what kind of metro-level services it wants to offer. In order to be viable, a carrier needs to have a plethora of ser- vices (a couple of dozen or more). In addition to metro-level services, the car- rier should also offer Internet services, long-haul services, and perhaps storage and disaster-recovery services. These, however, typically could be delivered in conjunction with partners to avoid the expense of building out a national Internet Protocol (IP) and general-transport network. Carrier pricing needs to be sustainable and a profit must also be shown (at least within a couple of years). It is not desirable to sell service below cost as some Ethernet Local Exchange Carriers (ELECs) have done because this creates losses and a dependency on external funding. Eventually this leads to bankruptcy. Metro-level providers need to concentrate on high-ticket-item services (in the range of $4,000 to $15,000 monthly recurring charge [MRC]) in Practical Design and Economic Parameters order to be viable. If they concentrate at the low end (either sub-$1,000 or around $1,000 MRC), there will be less of an opportunity for margins, and the customer volume will be so high that the operations cost (to provision, engineer, and maintain service) will be rather large. After a set of services is selected, your focus will turn to developing and deploying a multiarchitecture, multitechnology platform. Technology will have to be secured across multiple vendors to ensure best buys. Simultane- ously, you'll need a market analysis that looks at the portfolio of services against potential customers in various cities (perhaps by focusing on spe- cific Standard Industrial Classification [SIC] codes of interest, such as banking, insurance, brokerage, and so on). Results from your market analy- sis are necessary to understand the following: How many customers and/or 