Commissioner Carr Remarks on Receiving Public Service Award: Keeping Pace with Dynamic Industries

5G isn’t just an upgraded version of 4G. 5G’s performance characteristics and how it is built blur the distinctions between wired and wireless industries. 5G will enable more choice as previously siloed industries compete, which we know will decrease prices and improve quality. In performing a competition analysis, it would be a mistake to look backwards at the wireless industry as it is constituted today. The lesson for competition authorities should be this: Technology is now creating and disrupting on shorter and shorter cycles. To keep pace, we must bring fresh thinking to competition policy and in particular to how we define relevant product markets. We must have the courage to break free from the restraints of the past and adopt approaches that reflect the realities of the marketplace as it is today and will be tomorrow. If we cling too long to decades-old market definitions, we will fail to see clearly a transaction’s benefits and costs. And there is nothing pro-consumer about that. So I want to welcome Larry, George, and the Phoenix Center scholars to help contribute to this discussion.