At its December 12 Open Meeting, the FCC adopted its first Communications Marketplace Report, which combines several separate reports into one and is meant to provide a comprehensive overview of the mobile wireless, fixed broadband, audio, video, and satellite communications markets. Congress directed the Commission to complete such a report biennially with its passage of the RAY BAUM’S Act in March 2018. The Act also reauthorized the FCC for the first time in nearly three decades and directed the FCC to take on additional efforts to free up spectrum for commercial mobile and fixed wireless use. Significantly, while the Commission was previously required to include in the Mobile Wireless Competition Report an assessment of whether there is effective competition in the mobile wireless market, whether any carriers have a dominant share of the market, and whether additional carriers would enhance competition, these requirements were struck by the RAY BAUM’S Act when the wireless report was folded into the marketplace report. As a result, the marketplace report does not venture to analyze, or even mention, the proposed merger of Sprint and T-Mobile.
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