On Monday, May 16, 2022, the FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics (“OEA”) released a Public Notice (“Notice”) seeking comment on the state of competition in the communications marketplace for the 2022 Communications Marketplace Report (“Report”) GN Docket No. 22-203. The Report, which the Commission must publish in the last quarter of every even numbered year, assesses the state of competition in voice, video, audio, and data services among telecommunications providers, mobile service providers, multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”), broadcast stations, satellite providers, and Internet service providers. To assist the Commission with its assessment, OEA now seeks comments, analyses, data, statistics and information from stakeholders on notable trends and developments in the marketplace during 2020 and 2021, as well as information on any notable trends and developments that have occurred during early 2022.
With respect to competition and deployment in mobile broadband services, OEA seeks information on (i) industry data, competitive dynamics, and trends that determine demand for services, the number of connections, pricing, spectrum holdings, network coverage, and development of innovative technologies; (ii) whether laws, regulations, regulatory prices, or marketplace practices pose a barrier to competitive entry in the mobile wireless marketplace, including for small business, or to the competitive expansion of existing providers; and (iii) whether OEA should rely on mobile Broadband Data Collection data for the Report, if OEA should continue to use solely FCC Form 477 4G LTE coverage data for the upcoming Report, or, if there are alternative data sources on mobile coverage that should be considered. The Notice also outlines a number of potential issues of interest to focus on with respect to the mobile wireless industry, including but not limited to, spectrum holdings and access to spectrum, the role of infrastructure in the marketplace, trends in usage and pricing, network quality and speed of service, and the extent of competition between mobile and fixed providers of voice, broadband and video services. OEA also seeks information on how to account for and incorporate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic into the 2022 Report analysis.
Interested parties may access the most recent updates to the Communications Marketplace Report here: https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/consolidated-communications-marketplace-reports/CMR-2020
Comments are due July 1, 2022
Reply comments are due August 1, 2022
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