Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC says wireless industry competitive, data quality questioned

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:47:59 -0400

FCC says wireless industry competitive, data quality questioned
By Jeffrey Silva
June 27 12:12:00, 2003

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission Thursday said the wireless
industry remains highly competitive,
but concerns were raised about the quality of data collected by the agency and
whether rural consumers are missing out on the benefits of service choice, lower
prices and new digital features.

FCC member Michael Copps, a Democrat, said the mobile-phone firms refused to help
federal regulators collect data on the state of wireless industry competition.
Copps has criticized FCC data-gathering efforts in the past.

“If industry will not assist us in this effort, I believe that the commission has
a responsibility to contract with outside, independent researchers to gather the
following data,” said Copps. “First, we need independent data on wireless prices.
We currently have no pricing data at all on smaller markets and rely instead on
pricing in the most-competitive, biggest markets as a proxy for the
least-competitive, smallest markets.”

FCC Chairman Michael Powell called the agency’s report “the most comprehensive and
complete” snapshot of the wireless sector.

Among the major findings of the eighth annual wireless competition report:

During 2002, the mobile telephone sector generated more than $76 billion in
revenues, and the number of mobile
telephone subscribers rose from 128.5 million to 141.8 million, resulting in a
nationwide penetration rate of
roughly 49 percent. Broadband PCS and digital SMR licensees continued to deploy
their networks. To date, 270
million people, or 95 percent of the total U.S. population, live in counties with
three or more different mobile
telephone operators, and more than 236 million people, or 83 percent of the U.S.
population, live in counties with
five or more operators competing to offer service

Digital technology is now widespread in the commercial wireless industry.
Approximately 278 million people, or 97 percent of the total U.S. population, live
in counties where operators offer digital mobile telephone service, and digital
subscribers made up approximately 88 percent of all mobile telephone subscribers
at the end of 2002, up from 80 percent at the end of 2001.
During 2002, subscribers' average monthly cell-phone use continued to rise, and
the price per minute of mobile telephone service continued to fall. Minutes of use
per month averaged 427 between June and December 2002, an increase of 12 percent
from 380 during the same period in 2001. Estimates for the decrease in the price
of mobile telephone service during 2002 range from 1 to 9 percent, depending on
the methodology employed.

Mobile data services have begun to play a more significant role in the CMRS
industry. While such services generated only 1 percent of total industry revenue
during 2002, an estimated 11.9 million, or 8 percent, of the 141.8 million mobile
telephone subscribers at the end of 2002 subscribed to some type of mobile
Internet service.  An additional 2.3 million consumers subscribed to mobile
Internet services on data-only mobile devices at the end of 2002. Mobile data
providers began offering a variety of new services to consumers during the past
year, including downloadable ring tones and graphics, multimedia messaging
services and interactive gaming. In addition, established services, such as text
messaging and e-mail, continued to grow in popularity. It is estimated that 20
percent of all mobile telephone subscribers used text-messaging services during
the fourth quarter of 2002.

Mobile telephone carriers continued to upgrade their networks with next-generation
technologies (including GPRS and CDMA 1xRTT), which allow them to offer mobile
data services at higher data transfer speeds typically ranging from 30 to 70
kilobits per second. As of March 2003, operators were offering services over these
next-generation networks in at least some portion of U.S. counties containing 265
million people, or 93 percent of the U.S.  population.

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=14085

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