Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son came to Washington a week ago to discuss \u201cthe state of America\u2019s wireless communications industry and the competitive global landscape.\u201d \u00a0Despite being Chairman of one of the top wireless companies in America, Sprint, Mr. Son spent the majority of his speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce explaining why he believes the U.S. telecom market falls short. \u00a0The data we\u2019re looking at, however, tells a far different story.<\/p>\n
As an initial matter, peak mobile speed in the U.S. actually doubled<\/a> from 7.5 to 15 megabits per second between 2012 and 2013, despite the fact that the U.S. is the clear leader in LTE connections. \u00a0We make up 50%<\/a> of the world\u2019s LTE connections, while only constituting 5% of the world\u2019s overall wireless connections.<\/p>\n That data stands in stark contrast to Mr. Son\u2019s claim about lagging LTE speeds in the U.S., particularly in comparison to Japan. \u00a0His data derived from anecdotal evidence from mobile users who voluntarily download an app from OpenSignal to track data signal strength. \u00a0If he wants to trust that methodology, however, Mr. Son should consider another OpenSignal study<\/a> claiming Japan had one of the slowest LTE experiences.<\/p>\n Moreover, American consumers \u00a0reap the benefits of faster connections for education, health and entertainment at a lower price point. \u00a0Americans use<\/a> their mobile devices significantly more than their European counterparts, with five times more voice minutes and twice as much data. \u00a0Despite that, in terms of data alone, the price per MB has fallen<\/a> more than 93% in the past five years. \u00a0That is also reflected in the broadband space, where the U.S. maintains the lowest entry-level price of any OECD country, and that price continues to drop as measured on a per-MB basis.<\/p>\n Most significantly, the U.S. telecom industry has achieved those gains with comparatively fewer burdensome regulations.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the US company in which Mr. Son now has a significant ownership<\/a> stake, Sprint, seeks to exploit government intervention and corporate welfare to prop it up against its competitors.\u00a0 Despite its status as the \u201cking of spectrum<\/a>,\u201d Sprint wants the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set rules for the incentive auction that would artificially favor Sprint and T-Mobile while limiting the ability of AT&T and Verizon to freely bid on coveted spectrum just as a spectrum crunch looms.\u00a0 Additionally, despite using spectrum in the 2.5 band for its \u201cenhanced<\/a>\u201d LTE network, Sprint doesn\u2019t want the FCC to count all of its 2.5 spectrum in the spectrum screen.\u00a0 Keep in mind that the standard for inclusion is suitable and available for mobile broadband use.<\/p>\n In the end, Mr. Son is right: \u00a0America\u2019s wireless market is not Japan\u2019s. \u00a0Not only are Americans enjoying faster speeds at lower prices, our wireless companies are achieving that by competing in our comparatively free market. \u00a0That\u2019s how America\u2019s wireless market was built in the first instance, and that\u2019s the model it should keep in order to continue our global leadership position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son came to Washington a week ago to discuss \u201cthe state of America\u2019s wireless communications industry and the competitive global landscape.\u201d \u00a0Despite being Chairman of one of the top wireless companies in America, Sprint, Mr. Son spent the majority of his speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce explaining why he believes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4472,4471,3228],"class_list":["post-20389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-masayoshi-son","tag-mobile-speed","tag-spectrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20389"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20393,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389\/revisions\/20393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}