U.S. fails to describe wireless industry as competitive

Source: Reuters

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission for the first time since 2002 did not describe the wireless industry as having "effective competition," a situation one senior regulator blamed on consolidation.

The key omission was in an annual report on the state of competition in the wireless industry. The FCC on Thursday released the report, which covers 2008 and a portion of 2009.

The last time the FCC did not describe the industry as having "effective competition" was in a report released in 2002.

The lack of the key phrase could set the stage for U.S. regulators to impose policies and regulations to increase competition for consumers who are demanding more data plans on their mobile handsets to surf the Internet and watch videos.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64J4P820100520

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Slowly but surely, the wireless industry becomes closer and closer to a monopoly. And not many seem to know it.

RANT PART ONE:

Why stand in the way of one merger after another when it's for the benefit of the investors, I mean, the market.

Anyone with half a brain knows that the last 30 years has been a mosaic of one business after another getting absorbed into larger companies so fewer and fewer players could control market share.

And the people, on both sides, have stood by because, in their mind, as long as there is some degree of consumer choice, then competition will keep prices down.

The only problem is that 1) large companies are loathe to compete by price in an apples-to-apples comparison and 2) the choice that we're left with is "take it or leave it".

RANT PART TWO:

A PERFECT EXAMPLE of this in action has been my Verizon wireless. Our contract has expired, and while we have two perfectly working phones, they keep trying to get us to commit to 2 years with a phone and minutes upgrade for the same monthly bill. We NEVER have used all our minutes - why make a commitment for something we'd never use?

BUT THE BIG POINT IS WHAT'S UNSTATED. While they're happy to give us more minutes for the same price, I ask, "How about, instead of giving us more minutes, YOU LOWER OUR MONTHLY BILL. That's never on the table...

Of all the stupid buzzwords invented by business in the last couple of decades, I think I hate that one the worst. And there are a lot to choose from!

.

UNREGULATED.

At least when MaBell was around it was a regulated monopoly by federal, state and local agencies. Bell was required to serve the public and for that service was guaranteed a reasonable profit.

When POTS is dead there will be Hell to pay - mostly in the way of giant bills.

What Bell always wanted with land lines they are going to get with wireless - no regulation and metered service. A win win for them and a total lose for the people.