If perfect market competition is occurring, the price of a commodity should equal the marginal cost of producing it.
What is the marginal cost of delivering a text message? I strongly suspect it is much less, much much less, than the $0.10 to $0.20 per 140 character message the all providers charge these days.
This is the smoking gun that there is anti-competitive collusion or price fixing going on between cell phone providers.
Another smoking gun is (unfortunately) the Early Termination Fee class action lawsuit. All providers stuck to their high termination fees until sued; not one decided to "break rank" and offer a more attractive termination fee in order to attract customers.
These examples suggest their is something fundamentally wrong with the industry itself which is not causing enough market competition. What is the solution? Lower barriers to entry? Commodity trading of roaming call carrying?
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