Assessing Competition in U.S. Wireless Markets

Assessing Competition in U.S. Wireless Markets
Author: Gerald R. Faulhaber
Publisher:
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

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Last year's Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions with Respect to Mobile Wireless broke new ground by not concluding, as had prior reports, that the wireless services market was “effectively competitive.” This year's report did the same. The 14th and 15th reports review a wide variety of evidence, both direct (how firms and customers behave) and indirect (industry concentration measures) in making its competitive assessment. The reports are silent on how to interpret this evidence. In contrast, modern antitrust analysis relies far more on direct evidence. In failing to put more weight on the relevant direct market evidence to reach an informed competitive assessment, the 14th and 15th reports invite erroneous conclusions about the real state of competition in wireless markets. We are concerned that these erroneous conclusions eventually could adversely influence regulatory policy in wireless markets. Before economists came to rely on direct measures of market power, they relied on indirect measures, such as market share in the relevant markets, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), and market definitions. The 14th and 15th reports downplayed direct evidence of competition - namely, aggressive pricing behavior, robust entry, and continued long-term reductions in price, all of which strongly support a conclusion of “effective competition.” Instead, the FCC focuses on inferences of market power based on market shares. For example, the FCC makes much of the combined share of the top four wireless providers generally, and of the top two wireless providers, AT&T and Verizon, in particular. To test the FCC's presumed relationship between market structure and prices in the wireless industry, we analyze the TNS Telecoms database of cellular telephone bills. We find no statistically significant relationship between a household's monthly wireless bill and the HHI of the economic area in which the household resides. Thus, market concentration does not appear to have an impact on what the customer actually pays. This finding, along with the fact that wireless prices have declined over time as industry concentration has increased, undermines the structure-conduct hypothesis that undergirds the FCC's market-share analysis. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our findings for handset exclusivity and spectrum allocation.

Telecommunications

Telecommunications
Author: United States. General Accounting Office
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2000
Genre: Competition
ISBN:

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Crafting a Successful Incentive Auction

Crafting a Successful Incentive Auction
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Publisher:
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2014
Genre: Broadband communication systems
ISBN:

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Telecommunications

Telecommunications
Author: U.s. Government Accountability Office
Publisher:
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2017-08-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9781974591657

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"Americans increasingly rely onwireless phones, with nearly 40percent of households now usingthem primarily or solely. Underfederal law, the FederalCommunications Commission(FCC) is responsible for fostering acompetitive wireless marketplacewhile ensuring that consumers areprotected from harmful practices.As requested, this report discusseschanges in the wireless industrysince 2000, stakeholders'perceptions of regulatory policiesand industry practices, and thestrategies FCC uses to monitorcompetition. To conduct this work,GAO collected and analyzed dataand documents from a variety ofgovernment and private sources;conducted case studies in bothrural and urban areas of fourstates; and interviewedstakeholders representingconsumers, local and stateagencies and officials, and varioussegments of the industry."

Competition in Wireless Telecommunications

Competition in Wireless Telecommunications
Author: Miguel Angel Campo-Rembado
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

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This paper presents an analysis of competition in wireless telecommunications that models the interdependence between spectrum availability, network infrastructure deployment, the generation of transmission technology, average traffic levels and service quality. We show that the constraints on spectrum availability and infrastructure that characterize this industry lead to service quality levels that are endogenously affected by market share, and this negative externality leads to bilaterally higher pricing power for competing providers. We incorporate the effects of these negative usage externalities into a two-stage game of quality competition with required minimum infrastructure levels, and establish two distinct kinds of fulfilled-expectations subgame perfect equilibria. Under the first equilibrium, which occurs at both very low and very high levels of average traffic, providers deploy the minimum permissible network infrastructure and price symmetrically. The second kind of equilibrium is asymmetric in both network deployment levels and pricing, though the equilibrium extent of quality differentiation is moderated by the externalities highlighted earlier. Analysis of these equilibria reveals three phases in a wireless market's evolution. In early-stage markets, providers should maintain minimum infrastructure levels and avoid active quality-based differentiation, relying instead on externality-based pricing power. As wireless markets mature, providers need to pursue an aggressive quality differentiation strategy, accompanied by continuous and rapid growth of their network infrastructure. Our model explains why the observed industry trend of relatively flat average revenue per user may be a natural equilibrium outcome during this phase, even though usage levels and value grow steadily. Finally, we identify a threshold level of average per-user traffic at which viable service quality levels and positive profits are not sustainable, and discuss how the rapidly declining profits and quality levels that precede this threshold should trigger active migration to the next generation of transmission technology.

Competition in Telecommunications

Competition in Telecommunications
Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262621502

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The authors analyze regulatory reform and the emergence of competitionin network industries using the state-of-the-art theoretical tools ofindustrial organization, political economy, and the economics ofincentives.

Introduction of Competition in Telecommunications Markets

Introduction of Competition in Telecommunications Markets
Author: Nestor Bruno
Publisher:
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

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One of the first international cases of telecommunication regulation that sought that incumbent firms shared their economies of scope and their network economies with their competitors was the one that took place in the United States, through the so-called “Telecomm Act” (1996) and its corresponding implementation through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in that country. The paradigm behind that scheme is the belief that reduction in entry barriers can imply an increase in market entry, since competitors that do not have to sink costs in building new networks can be able to compete to gain market share. Once those competitors obtain that market share, therefore, they will be able to build their own networks, and hence they will increase market capacity and change market structure.This paper seeks to reconcile the empirical evidence about the project implemented by the FCC with a conceptual model of competition in telecommunications with is different from the one pursued by the US regulator between 1996 and 2005. It is shown that industry concentration stays high despite the introduction of competition in the incumbent's network, due to the existence of sunk costs with are endogenous to the industry. Those sunk costs, moreover, can also provoke distortions in prices and in investment decisions.