McDowell Disputes FCC Claims in Wireless Competition Report
The market, not the FCC, prompted recent carrier actions to open networks to new devices, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said in comments on the agency’s latest and longest- awaited edition of its annual wireless-competition report. McDowell said that in the report, released Monday, the FCC makes far too much of benefits to competition that it claims resulted from what he called “untested” open-access mandates imposed for some spectrum licenses offered in the 700 MHz auction.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
The report is upbeat overall, noting that 95 percent of the U.S. population live in areas where at least three wireless carriers operate. Most Americans live have a choice among at least five competing operators, the report said. Historically, the report has been released in September at the latest. The agency postponed the release from its December agenda meeting.
McDowell was less cheery. “Certain discussions set forth in this report appear to apply a shiny new gloss on the Commission’s very recent, and as yet untested, open access regulations in the 700 MHz spectrum band,” he said, expressing concern that “the Commission may have imposed an artificial ceiling that will hamper ongoing market-driven innovation and creativity.” He cited the FCC’s “unwillingness” to credit the wireless industry with responding to consumer demand, “not prospective regulatory fiats.” McDowell also warned “against attempts to ’spin’ the data contained in this report into an ex post facto justification of regulatory mandates.”
Commissioner Deborah Tate seems to share McDowell’s concerns, though she commented less specifically. “To the extent competition remains vigorous in the CMRS market, I believe the Commission should tread carefully when considering proposals for regulation,” Tate said. “We should seek first to understand whether there is a market failure that justifies regulatory intervention.”
Commissioner Michael Copps, historically a critic of the annual reports, complained of that the agency has chronically failed to define “effective competition” in the report. “As I have stated before, we need to define that term ahead of time and then assess whether current competition data meets our definition,” Copps said.
For years, Copps has hectored the agency over various editions of the report that he says don’t delve into the data cogently enough and that lack a “credible definition of effective competition,” especially in light of industry consolidation. The commission has taken steps do deal with these concerns, and the latest version offers more detailed data, analyzing competition by census block (CD Dec 19 p3).
But Copps isn’t satisfied. “Instead, we come at the problem backwards -- gathering some data throughout the year and, when report time rolls around, letting the data drive us to an undefined conclusion that competition is present.”