NEWS Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, S.W. Washington, D. C. 20554 This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action. See MCI v. FCC. 515 F 2d 385 (D.C. Circ 1974). News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 1-888-835-5322 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: February 4, 2008 Chelsea Fallon (202) 418-7991 FCC RELEASES ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE OF COMPETITION IN THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY Washington, D.C. – Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its Twelfth Annual Report to Congress on the state of competition in the mobile telephone – or Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS) – industry. The FCC concluded that there is effective competition in the CMRS marketplace. The report demonstrates that U.S. consumers continue to experience significant benefits – including low prices, new technologies, improved service quality, and choice among providers – from competition in the CMRS marketplace. The Twelfth Report introduces a new data source that allows for a significantly more granular and accurate analysis of mobile telephone service deployment and competition. The new data source is a set of maps that provide the detailed boundaries of the network coverage areas of every operational mobile telephone carrier in the United States. Using these maps, the FCC was able to estimate: (1) the percentage of the U.S. population covered by a certain number of providers, and (2) the percentage of the population covered by different types of network technologies based on census blocks, rather than counties. Because census blocks are much smaller than counties – there are eight million census blocks versus 3,200 counties in the United States – this enabled a significantly more accurate and granular assessment. The analysis of this data shows the following: · Approximately 280 million people, or 99.8 percent of the U.S. population, have one or more different operators offering mobile telephone service in the census blocks in which they live. · More than 95 percent of the U.S. population lives in areas with at least three mobile telephone operators competing to offer service. · More than half of the U.S. population lives in areas with at least five competing mobile telephone operators. · Approximately 99.3 percent of the U.S. population living in rural counties, or 60.6 million people, have one or more different operators offering mobile telephone service in the census blocks within the rural counties in which they live. 2 · Approximately 82 percent of the U.S. population lives in census blocks with at least one mobile broadband provider offering service. In addition, during 2006, the number of mobile telephone subscribers in the United States rose from 213 million to 241.8 million, increasing the nationwide penetration rate to approximately 80 percent. The average amount of minutes that subscribers spend using on their mobile devices increased from 708 minutes per month during the second half of 2005 to 714 minutes per month during the second half of 2006. In addition, the volume of text messaging traffic rose from 9.8 billion messages sent during December 2005 to 18.7 billon messages sent during December 2006. Revenue per minute, which can be used to measure the per-minute price of mobile telephone service, remained unchanged during 2006 at $0.07. Action by the Commission on January 28, 2008 by Twelfth Report (FCC 08-28). Chairman Martin and Commissioners Adelstein, Tate, and McDowell, with Commissioner Copps approving in part and concurring in part. Separate statements issued by Chairman Martin and Commissioners Copps, Tate, and McDowell. For additional information, contact Heidi Kroll, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, at (202) 418-2361 or Heidi.Kroll@fcc.gov; or Ben Freeman, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, at (202) 418-0628 or Ben.Freeman@fcc.gov. WT Docket No. 07-71 – FCC – News and other information about the Federal Communications Commission is available at www.fcc.gov.