Shoot First with Snark and Maybe Check the Facts Later: Mistruths and Market Misperception by WSJ Columnist Holman W. Jenkins

            I was doing well on my self-imposed moratorium from correcting the frequent intentional and unintended mistakes in Wall Street Journal articles on telecommunications and the Internet.

Then along came Holman Jenkins’ whoppers in the Wed. July 31, 2019 edition: Faster Wireless vs. the Swamp; https://www.wsj.com/articles/faster-wireless-vs-the-swamp-11564527042

            Mr. Jenkins recently lambasted the government’s antitrust challenge to AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner and today he mocks any benefit derived from having 4 instead of 3 facilities-based, wireless broadband carriers.  Anyone who thinks consumers and wireless competition benefit from 4 carriers has a number “fetish.” He seems pleased by a Sprint exit, particularly given the low odds he calculates for a Charlie Ergen-managed venture to provide facilities-based competition.

            Mr. Jenkins certainly offered a correct characterization of Mr. Ergen’s slipperiness and inclination to elevate negotiating/complaining/delaying strategies over building networks.  Mr.  Ergen likely will try finding ways to collect a hefty markup on spectrum he hoarded and was soon to lose, having never migrated to actually installing facilities to provide service.  The Justice Department just gave him a 4-year extension and ample time to remain a wireless reseller, beholden to the remaining 3 carriers who actually operate physical (not virtual) networks.

            Mr. Jenkins enters the land of half-truths (or less) by implying that fixed and mobile wireless are just about to the point of interchangeability. He bolsters his argument with the false implication that Comcast and Charter are facilities-based carriers in their own right.  Not exactly.  Both carriers offer Wi-Fi hotspots which only offer islands of broadband access with no hand off capabilities.  Comcast and Charter mobile service relies on resold capacity from the 4—make that 3—national carriers. 

Comcast and Charter both operate as “Mobile Virtual Network Operators.” MVNOs “are essentially wholesalers of wireless spectrum — they buy bandwidth from carriers and then resell it to customers under new branding.” https://www.businessinsider.com/charter-spectrum-mobile-mvno-service-2018-7  As resellers, MVNOs survive in the marketplace if and only if a facilities-based carrier agrees to sell them bulk transmission capacity at a low enough price to squeeze out a profit margin.

We may reach a point where fixed and mobile network become interchangeable, but we are not there now even as consumers do abandon wireline phone service.  One should not conflate abandoning the wireline phone networks for abandoning any and all fixed wireline services.  Consumers switch from metered, throttled and not unlimited wireless service to Wi-Fi, because the latter is unmetered, unthrottled and far less likely to have a data cap at all, or one that affects incentives to use the service.  Bear in mind that most Wi-Fi networks use wired broadband for access to the Internet cloud.  The last 50 feet is wireless.

Mr. Jenkins has a penchant for righteous indignation generated by an alternative reality about current marketplace conditions.  I still cannot wrap my head around his view that 3 carriers are better than 4.  I don’t have a predisposition for any minimum or maximum number of facilities-based competitors in the wireless marketplace.  I can state with almost the same certainty as Mr. Jenkins that allowing further concentration of the wireless marketplace with 3 carriers holding a 95% national market share guarantees less competition, innovation and employment with higher subscriber prices, carrier revenues and deteriorating global leadership in next generation networks and services.

Muddy facts, reporting and analysis.

Wireless Carrier Ambivalence about Wi-Fi and What This Tells Us About Competition and Incentives

            Once upon a time, well over a decade ago, most wireless carriers saw Wi-Fi as a technological competitor.  The carriers always metered traffic then and wanted their subscribers to “use their minutes” rather than conserve them.  Subscribers could not “bring their own device, because the carriers managed a closed distribution link, selling most handsets and restricting the resale market.  Because the wireless carriers had a shared monopsony (buyers’ monopoly), they could dictate terms and conditions, including a prohibition on Wi-Fi access.  Nokia determined it could disable an installed Wi-Fi chip rather than redesign some handsets.

            Time passes and now wireless carriers adore Wi-Fi.  The carriers want subscribers to offload traffic onto Wi-Fi.  Better yet, U.S. carriers have lobbied the FCC to permit them to use unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum for their commercial, licensed services.  Note what a sweet deal this would be as the carriers could avoid having to competitively bid and pay for some spectrum.

            Obviously the complete 360 degree reversal of position reflected changed circumstances.  But does the integration of a Wi-Fi option show how robustly competitive marketplaces operate, or are their other factors in play?  It gets murky, particularly in this partisan and contentious time.  A free marketer could use this reversal of position as evidence of how competition destroys business plans and forces ventures to enhance the value proposition for consumers. 

            I readily accept that marketplace competition imposes discipline and forces “sleepless afternoons.”  However, the free marketer overstates her case, because of other factors that either have nothing, or little to do with competition. 

            First, one should consider spectrum supply and demand.  As wireless service demand grew and bandwidth requirements expanded, e.g., streaming video, wireless carriers considered Wi-Fi a free and easy way to offload traffic.  Wi-Fi abated spectrum scarcity.  Additionally Wi-Fi provided network access where dead zones existed, because of zoning restrictions, particularly difficult terrain and perhaps the financial burden from having to install ever more cell tower sites.

            Competition does pay a major role in stimulating demand for service, but one has to look at the market structure of the industry.  You might not know that the FCC first created a wireless duopoly with a guaranteed license and market head start for incumbent wireline telephone companies.  Back then, Republican and Democratic FCC Commissioners had no problem collectively agreeing on this sweet deal. 

            Over time, two more facilities-based carriers entered the market.  As late entrants, often using spectrum at higher frequencies having less geographical coverage, these carriers had to offer a better deal to acquire market share.  But these late to market entrants had to think quite strategically about how much of a better deal to offer.  Carriers like Sprint used the prices of the two major incumbent wireless carriers, Verizon and AT&T, as a price ceiling.  Sprint was more likely to match or slightly discount the price of the incumbents, relying on features to stimulate churn and new subscriptions.  Sprint offered handset subsidies, offered not to start metering until the second minute of use and provided free automatic number identification, a feature that cost carriers virtually nothing to offer.   

            Remarkably the wireless marketplace did not show much price competition until quite recently.  I used to compile charts showing the near identical terms, conditions and prices of the four national carriers.  So much for robust price competition; the carriers have mostly competed on features.

            TMobile has aggressively used feature competition to acquire market share.  This “uncarrier” maverick has provided most of the consumer friendly feature innovations, including lower roaming fees, particularly abroad, the option to buy and use your own phone, zero rating, etc.

            Simply put, wireless carriers compete because they have to, not because they want to.  Their initial reaction to Wi-Fi was to block its use.  They embraced the technology, because they had to, not because they wanted to enhance the value position for subscribers.

            Wireless carriers are not charities, nor are they role models supporting an unregulated telecommunications marketplace.

             

Loving Wi-Fi to Death—Wireless Carriers Want to Commercialize Unlicensed Spectrum?

            Once upon a time, wireless carriers in the U.S. intentionally disabled handsets they sold/leased to prevent subscribers from using Wi-Fi in lieu of licensed and metered spectrum.  Time passes and demand for wireless spectrum skyrockets.  Apparently Verizon and other wireless carriers now so need more spectrum that they have unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum in their sights.  All to better serve consumers, of course.

            Can you see the irony here?  Rather than compete on price, wireless carriers used to emphasize quality of service, availability and signal strength.  They spent millions on advertising explaining the superiority of their networks and billions in acquiring licensed spectrum.  Now they seem to have come upon a strategy that uses spectrum that they cannot control and must share with home Wi-Fi users apparently with no diminution in service, or congestion.  No “tragedy of the commons” overconsumption, because the wireless carriers will have techniques to avoid interference—apparently without having to identify vacant spectrum before using it.

            If licensed wireless carriers had their way, there would be no unlicensed spectrum for voice and Internet access.  You should read their filings over the years explaining the catastrophic consequences of noncommercial, private and unlicensed spectrum use.  These carriers wanted to charge for Wi-Fi service.  Failing that gambit, they want to expropriate unlicensed spectrum and convert it from noncommercial private use to commercial, for profit use.  What a deal!  Is this country great, or what?

            Verizon et al will try to explain how access to Wi-Fi is essential, right now!  Of course they will try to frame the Wi-Fi option as having nothing to do with saving money, or  not having to invest in more spectrum.

            Carriers no longer seem concerned about offloading traffic and free riding on the broadband and wireless spectrum of others.  This practice used to be derisively termed “hot potato routing.”  Now it’s a clever and greedy gambit to avoid paying their fair share for the bandwidth and spectrum they use.

Best Available Screen Challenges to the Wireless Lovefest

              With growing momentum, wireline incumbent carriers have achieved general consensus that copper-based technologies should reach end of life, the sooner the better.  The incumbents emphasize how wireless can satisfy consumers’ desire for tetherlessness, free to roam and motor without loss of voice and data connectivity.

            So far so good.  We should not dismiss clear comparative disadvantages in a wireless replacement, but who wants to stand in the way of “progress?”

 

            Nevertheless, you might want to join me in assessing the consequences of a wireless-only environment, particularly for a future marketplace that combines voice and data services.  We might welcome the added versatility of voice access via a single handset anytime and anywhere.  But what about the incumbents’ less visible campaign to make wireless the predominant and likely only option, particularly in many rural locations lacking access to fiber optic, or hybrid copper/fiber, broadband services.  If wireless voice evaporates, so would wireline Digital Subscriber Line data service and any other type of data delivery via now “abandoned” telephone company copper.

            A compulsory migration to wireless data services presents a far less attractive value proposition.  We might tolerate mobile video access via a small screen, but how would you feel if a larger, higher resolution screen was available?  Do incumbents really want to force consumers to abandon the best available screen at home, the high definition and soon to be ultra-high definition television set, so that the meter can continue to run on small screen wireless devices?

            I assume that consumers would rather watch video content on the largest screen available with the best resolution.  I also assume that wireless data subscriptions will continue to offer metered access to rather skimpy amounts of monthly data downloading and streaming at rates far in excess of wireline options on a per downloaded gigabyte basis.  One more assumption: just as wireless subscribers migrate to home Wi-Fi options to avoid running up the meter, future wireless broadband subscribers will not tolerate being bound to a wireless-only option that could result in triple digit monthly bills.

            Please correct me if I have wrongly assessed the copper retirement scenario.  I see a quite viable—if unstoppable—glide path toward a mostly wireless voice marketplace.  I’m not sure whether cable television operators really care much about offering wired voice telephony.  

            What I have problems envisioning is a wireless data marketplace that denies consumers options for using the best available video display screen, the opportunity to replace vastly more expensive wireless streaming with unlicensed options like Wi-Fi and substantial narrowing in the cost of broadband access between wired and wireless options.  Are incumbent telephone companies unintentionally bolstering the prospects for a non-mobile broadband monopoly controlled by cable television operators, or does 5G wireless make unmetered broadband a distinct possibility?

Hi-Fi, Wi-Fi and Fi Wordplay

             Readers of a certain age probably know the full words to the acronyms in this blog edition.  Hi-Fi refers to high fidelity and the stereo receivers and amplifiers of the 1960s that reproduced music with greater frequency range.  Wi-Fi refers to wireless fidelity, possibly a stretched play on words using the Hi-Fi concept to cover wireless broadband access.  The mostly male, engineers that served on various 802.11 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standards groups must have had a chuckle.

            Along comes Fi from Google: we move from high, to wireless to a new brand of wireless.

            Okay, some of us get the wordplay.

Who's Who in Telecommunications Preemption

            In the not too distant future the FCC will preempt state laws that prevent municipalities from offering Wi-Fi services.  About 19 states have done so largely because private carriers and their trade associations have asserted that public ventures cannot operate efficiently, preempt private enterprise, unfairly have lower costs of capital and tap taxpayers to sustain deficit operations.  In my home state, Bell of Pennsylvania secured legislation that explicitly granted it veto power over any municipal operation outside Philadelphia.

            My initial instinct supports private options in lieu of state or municipal efforts.  However, at some point it becomes fruitless to wait for the marketplace to support private carrier market entry, especially in rural areas.  Incumbent carriers cannot have it both ways: 1) expressing righteous indignation at municipal initiatives, but also 2) refraining from making the investment themselves. Most municipalities install Wi-Fi, because private carriers will not do it and city officials assume wireless broadband access will enhance the welfare of citizens and establish a comparative advantage vis a vis other localities lacking such access. 

           Arguably Wi-Fi constitutes an essential service (maybe not a public utility) that consumers increasingly assume to be available everywhere.  As towns developed in the United States, municipal governments created water and sewage authorities rather than await private ventures that might consider such sunk investment as prudent.

            I do not seeing muni wi-fi as evidence of governmental mission creep where market failure exists.  Municipalities become the carrier of last—and only—resort.

            A different and more complex issue lies in the lawfulness of federal preemption.  Case precedent supports preemption when interstate service becomes so integrated with intrastate service that the two types of service are not separable.  In effect the interstate service “contaminates” and prevails so that the FCC can lawfully assert jurisdiction.  Additionally case law supports FCC preemption when a service evidences basic long-haul, interstate characteristics.   Internet access typically involves traffic routing that crosses state borders.  Lastly the FCC can prempt a service that constitutes a functional equivalent to, or interconnects with a federally regulated service.  A federal court affirmed the FCC’s preemption of state Voice over the Internet Protocol regulation (the Vonage case, Minn. PSC v. FCC, 394 F.3d 568 (8th Cir. 2004) based on the fact that most services interconnect with federally regulated long distance telephone service.  Additionally courts are receptive to arguments that different regulation by 50+ jurisdictions would “balkanize” and unnecessarily complicate the regulatory process.

            So why all the agitation by incumbent carriers?  I cannot see municipal networks becoming a major service alternative, particularly for larger cities where some attempts already have failed.  Likewise I don’t see incumbents hell-bent to offer “free” wi-fi service, although they may execute a strategy to use wi-fi for back-haul and video delivery to off-load traffic from 3G and 4G cellular networks.

            Perhaps incumbents simply shoot first and ask questions later on any initiative that does not include them and their approval. Maybe incumbents want to foreclose any unlicensed alternative to licensed operations, particularly ones that cost billions to acquire in spectrum auctions.

            Unlike the network neutrality debate, I believe incumbents will have a harder time convincing an appellate court to overturn the FCC.  This court would have to ignore ample case precedent, but who knows maybe the Supreme Court will ultimately hear the case and change course so that federalism and states’ rights trumps common sense.