Competition is a mainstay of the wireless industry. While the first decade of cellular service was marked with duopoly service where each carrier could do a poor job and still get a decent share of the marketplace, today nearly 60 markets have five wireless carriers competing for customers.
Wireless companies are aiming high in this increasingly competitive arena. The ultimate goal of these carriers is to be able to compete, not just with each other, but with wired-based telecom providers.
But this industry, which thrives on competition, still hasn’t figured out one piece of itself-that is, carriers’ relationships with resellers.
A year-end survey by the Telecommunications Resellers Association said that 90 percent of respondents who tried to resell PCS services were not able to do so, and that number rose to 100 percent for those respondents who tried to resell specialized mobile radio services. As such, resellers feel there is “a resale blockade,” and earlier this month asked FCC Commissioner Bill Kennard to overturn the commission’s ruling that would sunset mandatory wireless resale requirements five years after all broadband PCS licenses are awarded.
Yet the Personal Communications Industry Association has asked the FCC to exempt PCS from mandatory resale requirements.
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association President Tom Wheeler, in an RCR interview that appears in this issue, argues that resellers can get agreements with wireless carriers, but that resellers want those agreements only at prices that favor the resellers.
Such animosity.
Are resellers an integral part of wireless? Is there enough competition (too much competition) in wireless today? What is the role of resellers in this changing wireless-scape?
These aren’t easy questions. But this industry reached a compromise on third-generation technical standards, for goodness sake. One would think the reseller issue could be resolved as easily.
