later retreat from this position and acknowledge wireless as a direct competitor to wireline local telephone service after the deployment of the second-generation wireless technology known as personal communications services (PCS) (FCC 1998d, 2003a, 2003b). Over time, policymakers have narrowed the scope of local telephone networks' platform access obligations. With respect to long distance, the FCC has ruled that the local telephone companies created by the breakup of AT&T now face sufficient competition to justify permitting them to offer in-region long-distance service in every state except Alaska and Hawaii (FCC 2008c). As discussed in greater detail in Chapter 9, the dissipation of the need for platform access to preserve long distance competition is demonstrated most eloquently by the regulatory authorities' approval of SBC's acquisition of AT&T and Verizon's acquisition of MCI, which reconsolidated local and long distance services. In addition, the FCC has eliminated the platform access for information services. As the FCC recognized when eliminating the regulatory requirements imposed by the Computer Inquiries, those rules "were developed before separate and different broadband technologies began to emerge and compete for customers" and could no longer be justified under contemporary circumstances (FCC 2005d, pp. 14876-77). Last, the FCC has acknowledged that the increase in competition has weak- ened the ability of last-mile providers to discriminate in favor of proprietary CPE. Networks in Telecommunications For example, in 1992 the FCC abolished the prohibition on bundling CPE with wireless telephone services. The FCC issued this order at a fairly early stage in the wireless industry's development, when the evidence of the competitiveness of the wireless industry was "inconclusive." As noted earlier, the FCC initially estab- lished the wireless industry in 1981 through a duopoly market structure and had not yet begun to auction PCS licenses. The FCC nonetheless found the possibility that some cellular 