Federal regulators charge the wireless telecommunications market with being “more concentrated,” according to an annual report of competition in the wireless industry, The Wall Street Journal  reported. The Journal suggests that the report is a tool to allow the government to do what it enjoys doing most: Lay the groundwork for new regulations for greater federal control over the market, which in this case would benefit “smaller cell phone carriers such as Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA.”

"The U.S. has the most intensely competitive wireless market on the planet, and it's becoming more competitive by the day," Verizon officials countered. "The facts and the record establish conclusively that the wireless marketplace is 'effectively competitive,' as the FCC has found in the previous six wireless competition reports."

For years the FCC’s annual report found the market, which offers greater choice than almost any market in the world, "effectively competitive." This year the report doesn’t exactly characterize the market as “uncompetitive,” the Journal says, but does note gloomily that “industry concentration has increased by nearly a third since 2003.”

In related news, xG Technology officials say they’ve developed xMax – “the world’s first carrier-class cognitive radio network. XMax enables communications providers to deliver revenue-generating mobile services using free, underutilized spectrum,” company officials say, explaining that this “reduces the required capital investment and operating costs of deploying voice and data networks.”

The report finds that the country’s two largest providers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, have 60 percent of subscribers and revenue, “and continue to gain share from rivals. The smallest two, Sprint and T-Mobile, lost 1.7 million subscribers combined in 2008 and added just 827,000 last year.”

One wonders how this can be construed as uncompetitive, rather than simply a marked preference for what consumers switching to what they deem to be the more preferable service providers.

As the Journal explains, it’s about far more than simple appearances or name-calling: “Wireless carriers are sensitive about whether the FCC thinks national or local markets are competitive because the agency will soon free up more airwaves for wireless broadband services. If the agency doesn't think a local market is competitive, it could restrict which wireless companies are allowed to bid at auction.”
 
By David Sims.