The FCC just released its wireless report, and for the second year in a row this FCC has declined to come to a conclusion as to whether the wireless industry is “competitive.” After more than 300 pages of analysis of the competition in the wireless industry the FCC staff still could not bring themselves to a conclusion.
Any conclusion would have been better than none. Refusing to state their conclusion is disingenuous, and mocks the FCC process -- real manipulation of the evidence and process to seemingly secure the desired outcome.
We believe the wireless industry is wildly competitive. Consider that U.S. consumers:
- Command 300 million mobile connections,
- Use the most innovative applications (over 240,000 applications on seven platforms),
- Run on more than 630 choices of handsets, manufactured by more than 32 companies,
- Using the most advanced networks in the world (largest number of consumers served by 3G of any country in the world, and greatest 4G deployment in the world),
- While paying the lowest average price per minute of any OECD country,
- What they do pay allows U.S. wireless providers to invest $20.4 billion in their currently operational networks,
- Providing approximately 65 percent of Americans with a choice of five or more facilities-based providers. (The largest U.S. cities have more than 14 facilities-based and non-facilities-based providers, and in the smallest U.S. cities, eight out of 10 have more than 14 facilities-based and non-facilities-based providers.)
We ARE willing to come to a conclusion: An FCC that doesn’t recognize a competitive wireless industry after it performs a 300 page analysis is ignoring its own evidence.
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Today's TechByte was written by Bartlett D. Cleland, Policy Counsel with the Institute for Policy Innovation.