Exclusive cell phone agreements, like those between Apple and AT&T, may be under scrutiny if John Kerry and three other U.S. Senators get their way.
In a letter, the senators ask 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."
Specifically, the FCC should look into whether exclusivity is becoming more prevalent, squeezing customer choice, limiting what customers can do with their phones or making it harder for smaller carriers to compete, the senators wrote.
The letter is signed by Sens. Kerry (D-Mass.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), all members of the Senate Commerce Committee. They plan to discuss the matter of cell phone exclusivity this week and hope to have FCC input. In the end, the committee will determine whether to pursue legislative action.
It's important to note that this process is in its earliest stages. There's no bill yet, and even if one is drafted, it must be voted out of committee onto the Senate floor, where it could be changed any number of ways before reaching a vote. Certainly, there's no guarantee that we'll see this issue come to a head in this legislative session.
But I'm glad to see lawmakers looking at the matter. Particularly interesting to me is the issue of whether exclusivity agreements hamper "the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to 'tether' a device to a computer for internet use," as the letter says. I'd like to hear the FCC's take on this matter.
Exclusivity is often given a pass because it reportedly allows for subsidies that make powerful smartphones cheaper, that's a sticky issue because it's hard to say how much a phone is really worth beyond manufacturing costs. Perhaps an investigation will shed more light on this issue as well.
