Summary: The U.S. cellular telephone industry has grown from about 92,000 subscribers in 1984 to about 7.6 million subscribers in 1991--one of the fastest growing industries in the country. GAO examined the competitive structure of the industry and the adequacy of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) current policies in ensuring competitively priced service. While GAO found no evidence of anticompetitive or collusive behavior, the two-carrier market system that FCC created may limit competition in cellular phone markets. Price data were limited and yielded little information about industry competitiveness. GAO notes that neither FCC nor the states have ongoing efforts to evaluate industry competition. FCC is relying on the introduction of other advanced communications services to bring competition to the cellular phone market; GAO agrees that such services would increase competition, if licenses were granted to carriers not already serving a particular market. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Telecommunications: Competition in the Cellular Telephone Service Industry, by Kenneth M. Mead, Director of Transportation Issues, before the Subcommittee on Communications, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. GAO/T-RCED-92-72, July 1, 1992 (13 pages).
