FCC: Mobile Wireless Market Highly Concentrated

The FCC's Wireless Bureau Thursday released its annual report on competition in the mobile wireless industry, as well as a declaratory ruling on the commercially reasonable standard for data roaming agreements — the standard a court advised the FCC it could apply to discrimination in new network neutrality rules.

The fact that both of those were issues at the bureau level, rather than voted on by the full commission, did not sit well with the two Republican commissioners.

Though the report does not make a finding about whether or not the marketplace is effectively competitive, given that there is no agreed-on definition of competitive, it does say: "The mobile wireless marketplace continues to be highly concentrated: The top two providers – Verizon and AT&T — had almost 70% of nationwide market share and total service," the 17th edition of the report, covering 2013 and much of 2014, concludes.

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John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.