Antitrust Radar

Competition issue dossier

Communications infrastructure

Where do local communications concentration, network access, switching, and investment constrain rivalry across separately measured wireless and fixed systems?

The program connects two separately bounded FCC concentration systems: mobile wireless HHI weighted across economic areas and fixed-broadband HHI reported nationally and as state, county, and census-tract medians.

Inspect evidence Compare Atlas JSON CSV
Bounded markets2
Evidence routes19
Official records2
Source custody4
Updated through2026-07-21
Interpretation boundaryIssue program, not market definition

The wireless value is a weighted economic-area HHI. The fixed-broadband ladder combines a national HHI with medians of separately calculated subnational HHIs. Neither release provides a national provider-share table, and the two systems are not combined.

Use standard

01 / Bounded market screens

Keep each measure inside its declared universe.

2 market profiles remain separate inside this issue program. Census rows are navigation context, not substitutes.

Telecommunications

U.S. mobile wireless service

United States / 2023

HHI3,550CR4Not reportedTop shareNot reportedEvidenceVerifiedhigh confidence
Telecommunications

U.S. residential fixed broadband access

United States / separately reported state, county, and census-tract summaries / 2024

HHI1,501CR4Not reportedTop shareNot reportedEvidenceVerifiedhigh confidence
Census navigation context2 declared six-digit screens
NAICS 517112Wireless telecommunications carriers (except satellite)HHI 3,074.2 / CR4 96.6% / 1,184 firmsNAICS 517111Wired telecommunications carriersHHI 1,285.9 / CR4 65.4% / 3,403 firms

02 / Research program

Turn the issue frame into testable evidence requests.

Program questions are editorial research designs. Canonical dossiers appear only where the observatory has a definition-stable latest-to-prior signal.

Program questions

  1. 01

    How does concentration vary across economic areas, states, counties, census tracts, service tiers, and consumer segments behind the published summaries?

  2. 02

    Which provider-level shares, spectrum, wholesale access, switching, deployment, price, quality, and network-investment records explain entry conditions over time?

  3. 03

    What evidence distinguishes merger remedies, deployment programs, and regulatory changes from durable competitive outcomes?

Observed change

Canonical signal questions

2
Fixed broadband / Herfindahl-Hirschman IndexWhich entry, exit, share, switching, price, quality, or capacity evidence can explain the movement inside this exact market boundary?Market mechanism / observed direction: increasedWireless service / Herfindahl-Hirschman IndexWhich entry, exit, share, switching, price, quality, or capacity evidence can explain the movement inside this exact market boundary?Market mechanism / observed direction: decreased

03 / Participants and attribution

Separate source labels from operator evidence.

Participant shares apply only to their source, year, and market. Operator links rely on separate official attribution records and do not establish a complete ownership graph.

Measured rows

Source-labeled participants

0
No firm-level share table.

The current public evidence does not support participant rows for this issue market.

Separate evidence

Official operator attributions

0
No encoded operator attribution.

Market context alone is not enough to assert an operator, owner, or corporate family.

04 / Official record

Read chronology and named organizations as separate evidence.

2 dated records and 3 exact organization labels; no liability or causal inference is added.

Federal Communications Commission / Monitoring

FCC releases 2024 Communications Marketplace Report

The FCC released its statutory competition assessment with mobile wireless indicators including nationwide HHI weighted by economic area for 2016 through 2023.Open record

U.S. Department of Justice / Remedy

T-Mobile-Sprint settlement requires divestitures to support wireless entry

DOJ and participating states filed a settlement requiring prepaid operations, spectrum, sites, and transitional network access to be made available to Dish as part of the T-Mobile-Sprint transaction.Open record
Exact labels

Named organizations

3

Competition issues are editorial navigation programs assembled from exact public-record links. An issue grouping is not a legal product or geographic market, does not make unlike concentration measures comparable, and does not establish ownership, control, liability, competitive harm, or causality.