A competitive marketplace for wireless services brings consumers more choice, better services and lower prices, per a new study from the Federal Communications Commission.

An estimated 99.8 percent of the U.S. population has one or more different wireless carriers offering mobile service in the census block in which they live, the FCC claims in a study released days after it wrapped up the auction of spectrum for advanced wireless services.

"U.S. consumers continue to reap significant benefits -- including low prices, new technologies, improved service quality and choice among providers -- from competition in the commercial mobile radio services marketplace, both terrestrial and satellite CMRS," the FCC report said.

"The metrics â?¦ indicate that there is effective competition in the CMRS market and demonstrate the increasingly significant role that wireless services play in the lives of American consumers," the report said. "In particular, these metrics indicate that wireless technology is increasingly being used to provide a range of mobile broadband services."

The report, titled "Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions With Respect to Commercial Mobile Services," also found 82 percent of the U.S. population lives in census blocks with at least one mobile broadband provider offering service.

There are 8 million census blocks versus 3,200 counties in the U.S.

In addition, more than 95 percent of the population lives in an area that has at least three carriers competing to offer service. More than half of the U.S. population lives in areas with at least five competing carriers.

Competition, not regulation
The FCC report found that approximately 99.3 percent of people living in rural counties have one or more different operators offering mobile telephone service where they live.

"The report relies on an additional data source allowing for a more granular and accurate analysis of mobile telephone service deployment and competition," the study said.

"This source is a set of maps available through a contract with American Roamer, which provide the detailed boundaries of the network coverage areas of every operational mobile telephone carrier in the United States."

The FCC estimated the percentage of the people covered by a certain number of providers and the percentage of the population covered by different types of network technologies, including mobile broadband technologies with these maps.

New and innovative wireless broadband services are being deployed throughout the country on a competitive basis, said Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the FCC, in a statement.

"I expect deployment of innovative wireless broadband networks will accelerate now that the Commission has completed its auction of spectrum for advanced wireless services," Mr. Martin said.

"Competition among mobile telephone carriers has lowered the price consumers pay for mobile telephone service, stimulating rapid subscriber growth and greater usage of mobile phones," he said.

"Competition has also encouraged mobile telephone carriers to improve service quality and to begin deploying significantly faster broadband technologies on their networks.

"These results demonstrate how a competitive marketplace -- rather than economic regulation -- provides the greatest benefits to the American consumer."