Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on July 29, 2010 at 2:11 pm
By Mike Bennett, AT&T Executive Director-Consumer & Government Affairs
Did you know that during the last half of 2009, the wireless industry handled the equivalent of the entire catalog of books in the Library of Congress every single hour of every single day? And that amount of traffic is projected to double each year through 2014. Impressive, huh? How about the fact that, in addition to this incredible data growth, the industry handled over 2 trillion voice minutes, over 1.5 trillion text messages, and 35 billion picture/video messages?
It’s pretty incredible when you think about all the benefits the U.S. wireless market brings to consumers, and the country, every day. It is a true American success story. Since it was released May 20, we’ve been addressing various aspects of the Commission’s 14th Annual Wireless Competition Report, which failed to celebrate this success by not concluding that there is effective competition in the wireless marketplace. This was both baffling and troubling. The wireless industry may well be the most competitive industry in America, and we have shown that it is certainly the most competitive wireless market in the world.
All that we have highlighted in this series of blogs – from investment to price competition to non-price competition – accrues to the benefit of the consumer. The industry has rolled out numerous consumer-friendly practices in the past several years, including the elimination of roaming and long distance charges as well as the introduction of unlimited calling plans. Customer disclosure material at the point of sale has been substantially improved and detailed street level coverage map tools are now widely available. The return period for service and equipment has increased, as have customer self-service capabilities. Consumers can also easily set limits on their usage, and carriers now provide courtesy usage alerts to help customers manage monthly bills.
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Posted by: Carl Povelites on July 21, 2010 at 1:06 pm
In the FCC’s 14th Annual Wireless Competition Report, the Commission identifies three broad categories of non-price rivalry among wireless providers, including, (1) network upgrades; (2) product information and perception; and (3) downstream product differentiation. With the launch of a new smartphone almost every month – the new Bold, the new iPhone, the Incredible – the FCC is being schooled in non-price rivalry on a regular basis.
Let’s briefly look at each of the three broad categories identified by the FCC. First, network upgrades, a very broad category that includes everything to do with the network – technology deployed, coverage, speed of transferring data, etc. A person would have to be hard pressed not to believe that there is intense competition (yes, I will say it, effective competition) in this area, where entire marketing campaigns are designed to one-up the competition. The FCC’s report does a decent job in highlighting not only the major carriers’ investments in technology and coverage, but also that of smaller providers and new entrants, such as Leap and Clearwire.
Typical of this report though, while noting positive data, such as the fact that 99.6% of the population has mobile data coverage, 98.1% of the population has mobile broadband coverage or that 95.9% of the population is served by three or more providers, the report looks hard to point out a negative. Instead of admitting that only 4.1% of Americans lack access to three or more providers, the FCC instead explains that 30% of rural Americans lack 3 or more choices – purposely twisting a good news story into one that sounds worse than it is.
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Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on July 13, 2010 at 11:01 am
Authored by Kimberly Darrin, AT&T Director of Public Policy
I grew up in the ‘80s asking, “Where’s the beef?”. It’s probably not much of a surprise then that fast food is top on my list when I stop to consider what other industries have been as creative in appealing to the needs and wants of the American consumer as the wireless industry. Bringing consumers value for their dollar is the name of the game when companies are allowed to compete.
In evaluating whether effective competition exists in the wireless industry for its 14th Annual Report, the FCC looked in part to price rivalry. Wireless carriers compete on many levels to attract and retain satisfied customers, but appealing to consumers’ pocketbooks is one of the more tangible and surefire ways to ensure success. Case in point: the dollar menu.
Back in 1998, AT&T revolutionized wireless pricing plans by introducing the Digital One Rate (DOR), which offered consumers national calling plans with no roaming charges and no separate long distance fees. When you come up with a good idea, your competitors follow. Offer customers the option to “supersize” their meal and don’t be surprised when you see a competitor offer a “biggie” or better yet, a “great biggie.”
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