ROCKVILLE, MD - Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Research Fellow Seth Cooper submitted reply comments today with the FCC urging the agency, based on the available evidence, to make a determination in its upcoming Seventeenth Wireless Competition Report that the wireless marketplace is effectively competitive.

Immediately below is the Introduction and Summary of FSF's comments without the footnotes included. A PDF of the full comments with the footnotes and Appendix A is available here.

 

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Introduction and Summary

 

The focus of these reply comments primarily is on Section 332(c)(1)(C)'s requirement that the Commission's annual report on the state of wireless competition "shall include...an analysis of whether or not there is effective competition" in the wireless market. A plain reading of the statute and agency precedents strongly suggests this must include a yes-or-no conclusion by the Commission as to the state of wireless competition, based on its analysis of the information contained in the report. Regrettably, the last three reports issued by the Commission have ducked this statutory obligation.

 

The forthcoming Seventeenth Wireless Competition Report offers an opportunity for a course correction. The Commission should bring itself in line with the statute and with available data which demonstrates the dynamism and competitiveness of today's wireless marketplace. Most of the Commission's prior reports, up to and including the Thirteenth Report, concluded that the wireless market is effectively competitive. And data collected in the Commission's prior reports, as well as comments submitted in this proceeding, amply attest to the effective competition that exists in the wireless market. Consumer choice among wireless service providers prevails nationwide, with increasing numbers of consumers adopting smartphones, downloading wireless apps, and engaging in m-commerce. Meanwhile, consumers in recent years have enjoyed price decreases on a voice per minute or a per megabit basis. And investment in infrastructure by wireless operators, as well as the unveiling of new products and services, continues on a strong upward trajectory.

 

This Commission's next report on wireless competition should make a yes-or-no assessment based on its analysis of the market. The Commission may have within its discretion the ability to pursue different approaches to this statutory mandate, such as explaining possible shortcomings to a binary conclusion about the market's competitive status or analyzing wireless according to the Section 628(g) standard for ascertaining effective competition in the video services market. But faithful adherence to the statute means rejecting the policy lever interventionist orientation endorsed by the last three reports.

 

Finally, the Commission needs to take a more rigorous approach to accounting for intermodal competition as part of its overall analysis of the wireless market. The time for the agency to remove its blinders with regard to fully considering and accounting for the impact of intermodal competition is long past.

  

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