CTIA fights back: U.S. wireless market is ‘thriving’

The mobile-phone industry, criticized for stifling competition and innovation said to be on display in European and Asian markets and fearing a regulatory backlash in the United States, filed with the Federal Communications Commission an analysis showing the American wireless market leading its overseas counterparts in key categories.
“Throughout 2007, the United States wireless industry has been characterized by certain groups as inferior to the market in other parts of the world — particularly Europe. As we begin 2008, CTIA would like to dispel the myth that consumers outside the United States have it better than American wireless consumers,” said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, VP of regulatory affairs at the cellphone industry association.
CTIA said the U.S. cellular market excels in five of six market metrics based on data for the 10 largest countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
The wireless trade group said the U.S. wireless market has the largest number of subscribers, the lowest revenue received per minute of use, the highest average monthly minutes of use, the largest number of carriers with more than a million subscribers and the least concentrated cellular market.
“Thanks to an affordability that is the envy of consumers worldwide, U.S. subscribers are actually using nearly twice as many minutes as consumers in the next closest OECD top-ten country, and multiples of all the other countries,” McCabe said. “All this from a marketplace that is the most efficient user of spectrum.”
He noted that, among the 10 leading OECD nations, the U.S. ranks behind six of them insofar as spectrum allocated for commercial use, including radio frequencies won at the advanced wireless services auction (but not yet fully operational) and those up for grabs in 700 MHz auction later this month.
Consumer and public-interest groups have hammered the U.S. mobile-phone industry over handset locking, closed network platforms, pricey early termination fees and other practices they allege undermine competition and innovation. Indeed, such complaints were aired in the lead-up to the last year’s FCC decision to impose an open-access condition on a third of the 700 MHz spectrum slated for auction beginning Jan. 24. The same wireless grievances helped form the foundation for a wireless consumer protection bill pending in the Senate.
“We believe that the commission should be proud of the U.S. wireless market that you have helped to create,” McCabe said. “The American wireless market is thriving — to the clear benefit of the consumers who reap more minutes of use, affordable prices and the innovation that is the hallmark of the United States industry. We hope that the presentation of this independent data will bring to an end the inaccurate statements that are being made about the U.S. market.”