The FCC says US telephone companies have incurred a 26% increase in the cost of annual maintenance on traditional copper telephone lines over the past 5 years.  Verizon makes 25% better margin on wireless phone than "land line" phones.  FiOS is making it possible for Verizon to get into the high value video and cable television industry with a next-generation fiber optic infrastructure. So why would anybody find Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's announcement at a Goldman Sachs investor conference that "his company is simply no longer concerned with telephones that are connected with wires" a surprise? 

Well, there are still many people on the street who believe copper "land Lines" offer better quality, security, and value.  There are those who believe it is necessary to continue pumping money into technologies which are expensive to maintain, and offer little additional value to subscribers. 

There are those who believe expansion of high performance wireless infrastructure such as LTE (long term evolution) and 4G (4^th Generation Wireless) will not meet the needs of individual subscribers in both rural and urban areas.