Many phone users don't feel the need to be wired.

• Position: UTILITIES

When Concord-based CT Communications launched broadband Internet services that deliver information at 10 megabits per second about a year ago, executives touted the new lines as the fastest in the region. They certainly were a big improvement over 1.5-megabit digital subscriber lines, Chief Financial Officer Jim Hausman says.

Now CT executives realize that 10 megabits might not be enough. Consumers want to play games over the Internet and download movies. "We think the 10-megabit network is just the starting point. And it's anybody's guess what that ultimate endpoint is going to be."

Traditional phone companies such as CT, which long operated as monopolies and still offer local phone service that's regulated by the N.C. Utilities Commission, face competition on several fronts. Efforts to deregulate local phone service have encouraged other wire-line carriers to nibble away local market share. New technology allows competitors such as Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage to carry conversations over the Internet. Cable-television companies have launched digital phone services. And more people are ditching traditional connections for wireless ones. The number of wired access lines in North Carolina has been falling since December 2001. In July, the Federal Communications Commission reported that for the first time wireless subscriptions outnumbered wired access lines in the state.

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CT has adapted by offering a co-branded wireless service through Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless. CT bought cell sites, subscribers and spectrum from Cingular in 2001 for $23 million. It manages the system locally, and the deal positions it to survive the convergence Hausman sees coming in wireless and wire-line technology.

Exactly how it will shake out is unclear, but one thing is certain, Hausman says: There's going to be a huge industrywide investment in telecom infrastructure equipment. "In order to maintain the broadband speeds that customers are going to demand, we're going to have to continue to invest in the network."

Meeting long-term customer demand also was on the minds of executives at the state's two largest electric utilities. Charlotte-based Duke Energy and Raleigh-based Progress Energy told federal regulators that they're interested in building nuclear power plants to handle everyday energy needs. Getting the plants approved and built will cost billions of dollars and take about 10 years. Neither utility has completed a nuclear plant--or...