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Re-activateWith the iPhone 3G S launching Friday, available exclusively from AT&T, and the Palm Pre having just launched, available exclusively from Sprint, it's a good week to ask: Is having particular mobile phone handsets available from only one carrier a good thing for consumers?
Maybe not, according to four senators who sent a letter yesterday to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Michael Copps to review the exclusive arrangements between wireless carriers and cell phone manufacturers. Advocates, including Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, are also weighing in against such deals.
The bipartisan group—comprising Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, along with Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), all members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation—today asked the FCC to "examine this issue carefully and act expeditiously should you find that exclusivity agreements unfairly restrict consumer choice or adversely impact competition in the commercial wireless marketplace."
Also, in remarks prepared for delivery later today to another congressional committee—the Senate Judiciary Committee—Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst with Consumers Union, says that handset exclusivity agreements "artificially limit consumer choice, restrict device innovation, and lead to higher prices." In addition, countering industry arguments that such exclusivity arrangements are an essential feature of the cell-phone marketplace, Kelsey points out that "handset manufacturers in Asia and Europe are able to sell 70-80 percent of...phones independent of exclusive deals."
More later on Kelsey's remarks to the committee on another hot-button consumer issue with cell phones: The uniformly—some say suspiciously so—high price of sending text messages.
Meantime, the Commerce Committee holds a hearing later this week on cell-phone exclusivity. —Paul Reynolds
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