FCC finds lack of 'effective competition' in US wireless industry - Page 2

Please tell us how you arrived at the "2-3x what you pay now" cost estimate.

I'd like to say I sympathize with the American public, but things are much worse north of the border. Contracts in Canada are typically 3 years long, plans cost more and include less than those in the US and two of the major carriers charge 15 cents every time you send or receive a text message unless you buy an even more expensive bundle that includes SMS.

On the surface it appears there is some competition, but in reality there's just Rogers (who also own Fido), Telus (who also own Koodo) and Bell (who own Solo and Virgin). Telus and Bell have a tower sharing agreement and identical pricing so they're more partners than competitors.

The only thing Canada has that the US doesn't is tethering for the iPhone, but unless you were an early adopter and got in on the 6GB deal when it was still available data pricing is so high that tethering doesn't make much sense.

Democrats have been in power a year and a half and how much longer are you going to keep blaming Republicans? At some point, you kind of have to put on your big-boy trousers and take a little responsibility.

Maybe you should look into Sprint. They are cheap and they suck.

Yes, the answer to too much regulation is even more regulation... in the mind of a bureaucrat.

Just a guess, but maybe around the time the Republicans stop obstructing and dragging out for months on end every attempt to do something?

The US is the same, except it costs 20¢ to send or receive. If I send a text to my wife (who is on the same plan as I am) it costs us 40¢

Actually the Democrats were in control of Congress since, what, 2004 or was it 2006?

But, honestly, it's not like either party is void of responsibility or void of stupid people...

EDIT: Checked, it was 2006.

At 20 cents per message, 1MB of maximum length SMS messages (including header information) costs $600 to send. Shocking, isn't it?

This kind of pricing made sense when the data was being sent of a circuit-switched network. These days it doesn't.

Common sense...

I see, so they are just meaningless numbers.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out if all the wireless providers were forced to abandon $billions in infrastructure and use the same standard protocols, consumers would have to pick up the cost.

Read my post I wrote this administration (democrats) will do nothing. How's that only blaming GOP?

B..b..b..but that's SOCIALISM!!! and therefore not permitted in the 'Land of The Free(TM)'

Unlike public roads, public services, defence, air traffic management, municipal water & waste management, the high-voltage electricity line backbone...

A different Administration that miraculously believes true Capitalism has no boundaries and is self-regulating, even if each market is majority controlled by an oligopoly or less number of players.

Who, exactly, is forcing you or anyone else to have a cell phone, let alone data plans? The market dictates the price. Are you suggesting the government should take over the mobile phone and data industry?

Let's see, how long did Bush blame Clinton? If I recall correctly, it was several years.

I see. And how much extra would it cost to make them insure that their 4G networks are compatible? Oh, and if you wish to claim infrastructure costs, detail and justify any abandonment vs items they would have to invest in anyway.

That's right. We need to stop any form of regulation of business and industry - unfettered capitalism at its best - it worked so well for America and the world, just ask Goldman Sachs, Massey Mines, BP, and all the rest

To find that there is a lack of competition between the US cell carriers!

Duh.

ANYONE who has paid the least attention to the US infrastructures for the last several decades knows this - Congress knows it, the Senate knows it, the Presidential cabinets for each of the last 10 or so terms in office have known it. Information technology management people have known this as well. I mean fer cryin' out loud, most of our industries (energy, transportation, telephony/landline/RBOC to name just a few) only pretend at competition - usually at the public level so voters/consumers don't catch on.

Seriously kiddies - I spent three years doing corporate litigation support for some of the biggest industry fiascoes - you should have seen the documentation. Once you know what to look for and what the trigger words are, it all opens up for you like a popup reading book. Ironically it sounds so much like the conspiracy freaks fantasies that the average person easily dismisses it.

Is it that the US government now control Autos, banking and Energy..

Or was it rather that those companies couldn't control themselves and so the government stepped in to play parent for a bunch of greedy squabbling brats.

I'd suggest the only "issue" is that the brats got paid.

Complete BS.

Is the US wireless telecom industry less competitive than 10 years ago? Yes, of course. 10 years ago, the US had 6 national carriers.

But you won't find any country in the industrialized world that has a more competitive wireless telecom market than the US.

Canada, France and Japan all have 3 national carriers. Japan and Germany have their largest carriers that has their governments as their largest shareholders. Japan's DoCoMo owns more than 50% of their wireless market.

UK used to have the most competitive market in the G7, but then their government allowed the merger of T-Mobile UK and Orange UK.

Verizon Wireless owning about 32% of the US wireless market is the LOWEST market concentration in the whole G7.

This is an industry where VZW drop their unlimited voice plan by $30 a month, and AT&T Wireless price-matched it within HOURS --- faster than some gas stations dropping their gas prices.

You people don't even know how lucky Americans are. As my fellow Canadians have stated earlier, I have to live with 3 year contracts, up to $720 in ETF... The original iphone contract plan in Canada was so bad that it created a PR fiasco all over the web.

Why? Because the nationalised phone system we had priori to BT, was woefully inadaquete and under-funded.

Besides which, the mobile phone market's competition provided in the UK is vastly superior to that of the US and they are hardly likely to go under anytime soon.

Comparing the US and UK markets isn't as easy as that. All four of the major carriers in the UK use the same wireless standards and the same frequencies. Six carriers in the UK currently offer the iPhone. Swapping networks is simple, handset subsidies are higher, contracts are shorter and there's no hidden costs or taxes in UK phone contracts.

T-Orange may now have ~40% marketshare but the UK still has a more competitive wireless environment.

As usual, samab, your argument selects it's facts, ignores important ones, and fails to make a coherent point. Even if we grant your conclusion, that the US wireless market is the most competitive in the world, that doesn't mean there is any significant competition going on, it may just mean there are no competitive wireless markets in the world. As long as it's heavily regulated, that would be ok, unfortunately, in this country it isn't. Frankly, more competition "American style" in the wireless industry would be counterproductive at this point, we're already seeing smartphone ETFs go up. Let the regulators turn them into dumb pipes, all using the same technology moving forward. (And we've already discredited your arguments against that.)

My only bone of contention would be having the feds pick the standard. That would be bad and would be chosen at the lowest common denominator.

Aside from goblins, illuminati and the fantasies of those who think they are political left... Hasn't Apple single handedly started chipping away at cell market proceedures, both with the iPhone and iPad? If the tiny little fruit company can do it, what need is there for a governement regulation? Or is the idea to get government to simply pay for all the bills you don't like? Is there some specific GOP boogyman that made you to buy a cell phone?

Maybe look at it another way: instead of wasting the money on shody 'hope' stickers that fade to yellow in less than a year, that cell phone bill for your extravagent lifestyle helps pay for real jobs in the tech industry.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Landline service was purposely created AS A MONOPOLY to insure universal service. The tradeoff was that the government controlled prices in return for giving the monopoly to essentially one telephone system. It is true that as a monopoly, there was not a lot of technical innovation, but it was a very reliable and low-cost system. The landline system did not fail because of government intervention. It is in the process of fading simply because of disruptive technology. Few individuals really need landlines anymore, although I would maintain that cell phone service is still not reliable enough to replace all landlines (like in my apartment for example, where AT&T works only some of the time.)

The problem today is that even though there are multiple carriers in the U.S., each is acting as if they are a monopoly. The government does need to be involved - not to get involved in the day-to-day of their operations, but to insure that the industry doesn't become even more of a monopoly, by for example, either AT&T or Verizon buying T-Mobile.

The other issue is carriers promising and charging for service that they don't deliver.

And I think the price the carriers advertise is also absurd - they should be forced by the FTC to advertise a price that includes all taxes and fees.

Do you know that if you call a potential carrier and ask them how much your bill will be including taxes and fees, they won't tell you? They tell you they have no way of figuring that out, that you have to wait until your first bill.

IMO, that's why and where regulation is needed.

I'm as libertarian as they come, and I don't see this as real cause for concern about increased regulation. No specific action has been recommended, and I commend those commissioners who even suggested to leave it alone. Responsible governance is all too rare in this country, and we ought not to be critical of it.

For those of you bitching about your bill, you don't have to use a premium carrier like AT&T or Verizon. You can switch to T-Mobile, Sprint, or even MetroPCS. And you can get a phone for little or no upfront cost. Demanding the best of everything and whining about the cost is beyond childish, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

There are many places where government ownership and management is appropriate, but it's a slippery slope having them own any communications pipeline. Eventually, somebody's going to have the genius idea of policing it. And it'd be completely anti-competitive - innovation would come to a screeching halt.

Calling something a "slippery slope" is classic do-nothing rationalization. Not every action naturally leads to another.

Ofcom stated that the majority of the UK contracts signed are now 18 months or longer --- not much of a difference between US and UK. Sales taxes in US is lower than VAT in UK.

Swapping networks may be simpler TECHNICALLY, but the lack of ETF makes it much more difficult to switch networks financially in real life. And for pretty much the last 2.5 years, you weren't able to get unlocking codes from O2 on the iphone --- so that's impossible to switch networks.

The US market is much more competitive than the UK market now. Americans can end their contracts early --- pay a pro-rated ETF that is hundreds of dollars cheaper than Brits having to pay off the remaining part of their contracts. And when Americans switch carriers, they sign another 2 year contract with a new carrier --- the new carrier gives them a free phone. Pretty much negates the CDMA and GSM technical issue.

As I stated earlier, I never doubted that there is less competition in the US than 10 years ago. 6 national carriers in 2000 vs. 4 national carriers in 2010. Of course, there is less competition.

Spectrum is a limited resource. That means you can't have 10 national carriers competiting for your dollars. So EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY in the world will have something like 3-5 wireless carriers.

That's just the laws of physics --- it is like Homer Simpson telling his daughter that she must obey the laws of thermodynamics in his house. What you can't do is now say that "it may just mean there are no competitive wireless markets in the world". Under the current laws of thermodynamics --- the American system is doing pretty much the best in the whole world.

Secondly, your point that heavy regulation should be deployed in the US is completely missing the mark. The best example to refute your case is France --- the country who outlawed iphone exclusivity, whose regulator demand how unlocking codes should be given out to consumers... You know what? French consumers are screwed because there are only 3 national carriers in France. Instead of making these idiotic heavy regulations, a much simpler solution would be --- SELL a 4th national carrier license in France (which they finally did in Dec 2009).

Japan doesn't need heavy regulations --- what it really needs is the Japanese government selling their controlling shares in NTT and NTT DoCoMo and selling a 4th national wireless license. Germany doesn't need heavy regulations --- what it really needs is the German government selling their controlling shares in DT/T-Mobile.

What discredited? All major European spectrum auctions in the last 3-4 years have been technology neutral.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=135425

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=119378