C4K Equips Tennessee Youth With Computers

By Mandy Hale, Public Relations Specialist, Connected Tennessee

In the final installment of our back to school blog series, we examine Connected Tennessee's innovative and successful Computers 4 Kids program, which helps gives youth across Tennessee access to their own home computer.

Kids across Tennessee will be going back to school next week armed with not only summer memories, but with new computers, thanks to Connected Tennessee’s Computers 4 Kids (C4K) program.

C4K has been making its way across the state this summer, from Union City in far west Tennessee to Kingsport in far east Tennessee, awarding a total of more than 1,400 computers to deserving youth across the state. Both teens aging out of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services program as well as active participants in the state’s Boys & Girls Clubs received computers – the DCS youth awarded with laptops to carry with them into the next phase of their lives, while the Boys & Girls Clubs were outfitted with new computer labs, available to the children to work on projects, complete homework assignments, and in some cases, even check out a laptop to take home for studying purposes.

“Many participants come from low-income, single-parent homes and don’t have computers,” explains Michal Cranford, president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga. “With take-home computers, doing research papers may be easier for students, and those in high school will be able to find more financial aid opportunities for college.”

In Knoxville, the Boys & Girls Clubs Youth of the Year Nadia Valdez will start at the University of Tennessee this fall. Thanks to the C4K computers available to her through the Boys & Girls Clubs of Knoxville, Nadia will have somewhere to go to work on college assignments and connect with new friends in social network settings. Nadia’s experience with the Boys & Girls Clubs has equipped her with both social and educational tools that will last her far into the future:

“I recently competed for the Southeast Region Title and made it to the top three. It was an amazing experience and a wonderful way to meet other Youth of the Year across the region,” says Nadia. “I am super excited about attending the University of Tennessee next month; the summer has just completely flown by. Summer Orientation was a blast, and I cannot wait for classes to start! Thank you once again for all of your hard work and compassion.”

As summer turns to fall, the next phase of the C4K project will be kicking into high gear, with various training opportunities taking place at both DCS and Boys & Girls Clubs locations across the state. And the project will continue to award computers and host other educational events for the next two years, impacting nearly 60,000 youth across the state by the time it reaches completion.

Debbie Gray, executive vice president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga, sums the C4K project up well:

“What a great opportunity this will be for the kids.”

Connected Nation Reaches Out to Schools to Identify Connectivity Needs and Successes

By Lauren Hightower, Manager Policy & Research Communications

As part of our back-to-school blog series featuring stories about education and broadband, today we will highlight Connected Nation’s efforts to identify access and connectivity to the Internet at schools.

Seventy miles past Ely, Nevada, there is a one-room schoolhouse called Duckwater School. Nestled between farmland and an Indian reservation, the K-8 school appears to be old-fashioned. But on any given day, Duckwater students are taking an online quiz at their desktop computer, school board members are attending a school board meeting via videoconference, and Lyn Huston, the teacher at Duckwater School, is teaching with a document camera that projects a view onto a screen.

“When I started working at Duckwater School I started learning how to draw cartoon characters to help me illustrate words for the students,” Huston stated. Today, Huston relies on technology to teach. She recalls a teaching moment when she was trying to convey to her Spanish-speaking students what the word avalanche meant. Huston turned to the Internet and brought up a video of an avalanche. It was an “ah ha” moment for the students Huston said. “Technology allows my students to have access to the same resources that any other student at any other school has access to.”

This is a clear example of how broadband connectivity at schools is changing teaching methods and is enhancing the learning experience for students across the country. Connected Nation wants to ensure that gaps in connectivity at schools are identified and successes such as those at Duckwater School are shared.

Connected Nation is gathering information on school connectivity through an online survey process and partnerships with statewide associations across 11 states and 1 territory: Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

This data gathering process is part of the United States Department of Commerce’s State Broadband Data & Development Grant Program through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. All data that is gathered as part of this process is submitted for inclusion on the National Broadband Map.

Both nationally and at the state level there is significant value to capturing connectivity data for schools. Having this information available on the National Broadband Map will better equip state and local leaders, providers and educators with essential information and data that will assist with directing future broadband efforts.

Additionally Connected Nation is highlighting stories of both success and of need in newsletters that are being distributed across these states. Duckwater School was highlighted in the first issue of Connect Nevada’s newsletter which was recently released and shared with schools and other institutions across the state.

Connected Nation invites all schools, libraries, hospitals and public safety institutions to participate in our Community Anchor Institution surveys. Please contact Lauren Hightower at lhightower@connectednation.org for a survey password and visit the websites below:

Connect Alaska
Connect Florida
Connect Iowa
Connect Kansas
Connect Michigan
Connect Minnesota
Connect Nevada
Connect Ohio
Connect Puerto Rico
Connect South Carolina
Connected Tennessee
Connected Texas

CN Staff Give Back During Day of Caring

By Wes Swietek
Communications QA Specialist

Thirteen Connected Nation staff members joined more than 900 other individuals July 27 to work on community service projects across southcentral Kentucky for the local United Way chapter’s Day of Caring event.

The CN contingent worked at Cumberland Trace Elementary School in Bowling Green on a variety of projects. By the end of the day, the volunteers had: sanded and painted playground equipment; built and installed a rainwater collection barrel and revolving compost bin for the school garden; painted several four-square game diagrams on the school playground; and painted markings for four of the school’s outdoor basketball courts.

“The (CN staff) have been wonderful. I have been here 15 years and this is the first time we have had the basketball courts marked,” said Cumberland Trace Principal Mary Evans.


For some of the CN staff, the project had special meaning. CN Human Resources Coordinator Meaghan Reed is a graduate of Cumberland Trace.

“The Day of Caring is a chance to give back to the people who give to us,” Reed said. “It says a lot about CN that they allow us to take a day off to give our time to someone who needs help.”

Ohio School Helps Extend Technology Beyond School Walls

By Amanda Murphy,
Public Relations Specialist, Connect Ohio

As part of our back to school series, Connected Nation is showcasing a school in Ohio that is arming its students with the power of technology.

Foxfire Center for Student Success is a public community school within the Maysville School District located in Zanesville, Ohio. The school recently received federal funding from the government’s E-Rate program to extend its classrooms beyond school walls and into the homes of students.

Foxfire will be receiving about 350 netbook computers with Wi-Fi capabilities. According to Lewis Sidwell of the Maysville Local School District, the intermediate school’s 350 fifth through 12th graders will each be equipped with one of the netbook computers.

“We’re hoping the netbooks will allow for online learning, research, homework, and a chance to enhance the students’ learning experience,” said Sidwell. “Many of these students do not have Internet access at home.”

According to Connect Ohio’s 2011 report detailing broadband adoption and technology habits for Muskingum County, which includes the Zanesville area, 62% of residents subscribe to home broadband service. This leaves 38% of residents in the county without access to Internet in their home. Those surveyed indicate the top reasons for not having Internet at home is they do not own a computer (59%), they do not see a need for the Internet (38%), and Internet service is too expensive (27%).

The school has partnered with Sprint to allow for home wireless Internet access for the students through Sprint’s 3G mobile coverage. The devices will also be secured with proper Web filtering functions to block any inappropriate searches or sites.

Having the netbooks and Internet access within the students’ homes allows for greater learning opportunities for not only the students, but their parents and others living in the home.

“I think it will open up a lot of possibilities,” said Sidwell. “We’re hoping this program will allow us to connect with the students, as well as their families.”

Foxfire’s school year begins in early September. Sidwell says he is looking forward to the rollout of this new program and anticipates it will be successful.

New Government Program to Provide Michigan Students With Wireless Internet Access

By Wil Payton, Communications Specialist, Connected Nation

As part of our back-to-school blog series featuring stories about education and broadband, we take a look at an innovative program working to get schools and their communities online.

Two Michigan schools are among the twenty institutions chosen to participate in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Learning-On-The-Go Program, a pilot project to help schools extend wireless Internet connections beyond the classroom.

Michigan Technical Academy in Redford and Westwood Community Schools in Dearborn Heights will receive grants from the $9 million that is being allocated for the Learning-On-The-Go program.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski first announced the Learning On-The-Go program at an event in New York City in March.

“Education doesn’t stop at the schoolyard gate or the library door, so support of broadband for education shouldn’t stop there either,” he said.

The initiative is intended to give students – including those from low-income families who may have no other Internet service at home – access to homework assignments, study guides, digital textbooks, and other educational resources outside of regular school hours.

It will be paid for through the government's E-Rate program, which funds Internet access in schools and libraries and until now has never been used to pay for off-campus connections. E-Rate is one of four programs that comprise the Universal Service Fund, the federal program that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas through a surcharge on long-distance bills.

To be eligible for funding, each school or library had to develop a proposal to improve education outside of the classroom. The FCC then selected the winners through a competitive grant process.

The Michigan Technical Academy proposal included establishing a netbook program that utilizes an online mobile learning environment for its 5th through 8th graders with an emphasis on increasing educational productivity and proficiency with mobile learning devises, and to increase proficiency in core subjects with the use of technology.

The Westwood Community Schools proposal incorporated the use of mobile devices and/or desktop computers with wireless mobile cards along with a comprehensive online learning environment that offers a virtual educational experience for high schools students who are unable to attend school for a variety of reasons.

In 2010, the Connect Michigan Residential Technology Assessment revealed that close to 2.5 million residents did not subscribe to broadband service — an essential utility and a modern lifeline to quality jobs, information, and vital education and healthcare services.

To address the issues identified in the report, Connect Michigan and the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) convened the first Collaborative Broadband Committee (CBC) meeting in June. The CBC was established to maximize Michigan’s efforts to expand vital broadband in its communities. Attendees included representatives from the K-12 and higher education sectors along with other stakeholders with an interest in improving broadband availability and adoption in the state.

The efforts of Connect Michigan and the MPSC to engage Michigan educators and stakeholders, along with innovative federal programs such as the Learning-On-The-Go initiative, are current strategies for developing public-private partnerships to tackle the state’s high-speed Internet access and adoption challenges.

CN’s Koutsky Discusses How the USF Reform Debate Shines Light on Communities’ Technology Challenges

Tom Koutsky, chief policy counsel of Connected Nation, chats with TIA Now about the reform of the Universal Service Fund currently happening on Capitol Hill. Check out what he has to say about the on-the-ground challenges communities are facing as the discussions continue. Please check out the full length video and other videos on www.tianow.org.

7.8 Million Kids Heading Back to School With One Strike Already Against Them

Summer is nearly over, and that means kids will soon be returning to the classroom. This week, Connected Nation is looking at how families with children are using technology, as well as steps that schools are taking to make sure that all of their students can access broadband and all the opportunities it represents.

Unfortunately, a large number of students are starting out this school year at a disadvantage. According to The e-Learning Foundation, students who can’t access the Internet at home have grades one grade lower than their Internet-connected peers. Our research across twelve states plus Puerto Rico shows that about 14% of households with children in these states/territories do not have Internet service at home.



If this percentage is projected to the entire United States, it means that about 7.8 million school-age children will be at a disadvantage when studying for tests, conducting research, or interacting with their peers and teachers online (based on U.S. Census estimates of the number of school-age children in America). The top barrier to broadband adoption among households with children who don’t subscribe is the monthly price of broadband service, which is cited by one-quarter (25%) of these households.

There are several groups that are trying to make computers available to more children and provide better access to technology for low-income children. Tomorrow we will highlight an innovative program called “Learning On the Go” that uses E-rate funds to get tablet computers into the hands of low-income students.

Connect Ohio Provides Broadband Expansion Model to Gallia County Officials

Results from Connect Ohio’s analysis could be used to expand high-speed Internet in Gallia County

COLUMBUS – Connect Ohio staff presented Gallia County officials with information that paves the way for greater broadband access for county residents.

Connect Ohio’s technical outreach team has been working for months and provided a model for broadband expansion that is financially viable and sustainable at a meeting Wednesday in Gallipolis. Gallia County officials in attendance include Harold Montgomery, commissioner, Melissa Clark, economic and community development director, Jake Bodimer, economic and community development assistant director, as well as representatives from JB Nets, a local wireless Internet service provider, and Kinglsey Meyer, CIO of Rio Grande University.

Connect Ohio Technical Outreach Manager Bart Winegar and coordinator Ira Dye presented attendees with the data collection, cost estimates, and propagation studies for the expansion model customized for Gallia County, which can be utilized by an Internet service provider to bring broadband service to unserved and underserved areas.

“We have been waiting for information like this to put together an accurate business plan,” said Stephen Kline of JB Nets.

Gallia County officials have voiced their commitment toward creating a favorable environment for broadband expansion to occur.

“I am very encouraged by the enthusiasm and commitment of Gallia County officials to support broadband expansion and to leverage the propagation and business case analysis,” said Winegar.

JB Nets is utilizing the model presented by Connect Ohio to create a business plan for possible expansion throughout the county. The next step toward making the expansion a reality will be forming agreements with controlling authorities of area towers and infrastructure to enable the placement of broadband connections.

According to Connect Ohio’s 2011 Consumer Technology Assessment for Gallia County, only 42% of households receive broadband service to the home, significantly less than the state average of 66%. Below are additional Gallia County technology figures:

• 67% of Gallia County residents own a computer, which is less than the state average of 80%
• Of the 33% of residents who do not own a computer, 71% claim they do not need a computer, 21% say computers are too complicated, and 20% say computers are too expensive
• 75% of residents access the Internet from home or some other location
• The average monthly cost for home broadband service in Gallia County is $50.83, above the state average of $43.41

Additional Gallia County technology research can be found in this document. For more information on JB Nets, visit http://jbnets.net.

USDA Administrator Jonathan Adelstein Visits Central Ohio, Discusses Broadband Programs in Rural Communities

On Tuesday, July 19, United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein visited central Ohio to give an update on broadband expansion projects in rural communities nationally, as well as to discuss Consolidated Electric Cooperative’s progress on local fiber installation and broadband expansion in Delaware, Morrow, and parts of other surrounding counties. Consolidated Electric was awarded a Rural Utilities Service grant of more than $1 million and a Rural Utilities Service loan of about $1.4 million to aid their expansion project, which is about 60% completed, thus far, and expected to be 100% complete by the end of the year. The USDA’s support for telecommunications projects improving broadband service to rural residents and businesses is vital to economic development in these areas.

“Broadband was the first pillar of (Secretary of Agriculture) Tom Vilsack’s agenda,” said Adelstein. “Like the rural electrification program of the 1930’s, this broadband project will result in economic development for many years to come.”

Connect Ohio recognizes broadband as a key component of rural development. The recent release of Connect Ohio’s 2011 Residential Technology Assessment and 2010 Business Technology Assessment illustrates the challenges and opportunities that exist in Ohio’s rural community development. Below are some key technology benchmarks from Connect Ohio’s recent assessment.
• More than 88,000 businesses in Ohio do not use broadband.
• Businesses without broadband have annual revenue of $200,000 less than businesses with broadband.
• Manufacturing and Professional and Financial Services sectors lead in broadband adoption in Ohio.
• Only 53% of businesses in the Healthcare sector use broadband (about 13,000 healthcare-related businesses).

Also in attendance at today’s event with Administrator Adelstein at Consolidated Electric’s Delaware office were USDA Rural Development Ohio office staff, including J. Anthony Logan, director, David Douglas, community program director, Mark Elam, RUS field accountant, Consolidated Electric Cooperative staff, including Jerry Lauer, President/CEO, and Doug Payauys, CIO, Bart Winegar, Connect Ohio technical outreach manager, and area county officials.

Additional Broadband and business data from Connect Ohio’s 2010 Business Technology Assessment can be viewed at http://connectohio.org/mapping_and_research/.

The complete 2011 Residential Technology Assessment can be viewed at here. 

Specific county-level research can be viewed by visiting the Connect Ohio website. Click on the county of interest’s profile page, and then click on the county’s technology profile.

Learn more about Consolidated’s expansion project by visiting here. 

Learn more about the USDA Rural Development Rural Utilities Service by visiting http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/Utilities_LP.html.

Connected Nation in Attendance at Esri International User Conference

By Ashley Littell, Manager, GIS Services

This past week in San Diego, California, a contingent of Connected Nation’s GIS Services Team was in attendance at the Esri International User Conference. This event is considered to be the premier conference for GIS, mapping, and any other geospatial needs in today’s market.

The event this year was record-breaking, as Esri President Jack Dangermond indicated at Monday’s Plenary Session that there were almost 15,000 attendees this year, making it the largest group to ever attend the annual Esri event.

A variety of technical sessions, exhibits, special interest group meetings, and map galleries were spread throughout the agenda, providing an overwhelming number of resources for GIS professionals. The conference provides an opportunity to learn more about the power of GIS through technical workshops, forthcoming features and software releases, and a chance to network with other GIS users to discuss challenges and successes in their own environments.

One particularly beneficial event, just in its second year on the agenda, was the GIS Managers’ Open Summit. This event was designed to bring together a subset of the GIS community in management, a supervisor or director role, and even C-level executives in attendance at the conference. Considered an “unconference” event, the summit provided a mix of user presentations and breakout sessions to “engage in conversations with peers on topics that relate to business efficiencies, ROI, managing data,” and other ideas presented by those in attendance.

"The User Conference was an awe-inspiring event showcasing amazing new product capabilities with technical sessions and demonstrations on virtually every topic imaginable,” said Sarah Finne, Connected Nation GIS analyst. “GIS has made so many advancements in the last couple of years, especially with public data exchange and Web mapping. It was exciting and very informative to learn from these industry leaders and developers."

Connected Nation has had staff at the conference each year since 2008.

For more information, please check out the Esri UC Blog.

Group Forms to Expand Broadband in Humboldt County, Nevada

By Jeremy Thacker, Communications Specialist, Connected Nation/Connect Nevada

Local leaders in Humboldt County are laying the groundwork to create new jobs and boost the economy across northeast Nevada. The Humboldt Development Authority (HDA) board has officially joined Connect Nevada’s statewide initiative to expand broadband adoption and use in its region. The leaders met Tuesday in Winnemucca to form a local advisory committee in support of the effort to increase technology use.

The local planning teams are organized by Connect Nevada. The nonprofit is working to accelerate the availability and use of technology throughout the state to create a better business environment, more effective community and economic development, improved healthcare, enhanced education, and more efficient government.

Connect Nevada’s program coordinator presented to the HDA board at its meeting. Lindsey Niedzielski explained the process of forming a regional planning team. The team will eventually be responsible for decisions about how to increase broadband use among all area homes and businesses through public and private partnerships.

“High-speed Internet enables access to quality jobs, information, and vital services ranging from interactive telemedicine to higher education,” says Niedzielski. “Connect Nevada, with the support of the Nevada Broadband Task Force, is undertaking the important work of grassroots regional planning to grow and expand technology use in our communities. We are thrilled that Humboldt County leaders are working with us.”

According to Connect Nevada’s latest broadband availability research from the Nevada Broadband: Preliminary Overview of Broadband Infrastructure & Adoption in Nevada report:

- Approximately 22%, or one-fifth, of households in Nevada have broadband available, but for various reasons do not subscribe. Connect Nevada is working to raise the awareness of broadband’s benefits so that more residents will get online

- In Humboldt County, 95% of households have access to the minimum 768 Kbps download speed service, while 53% of Humboldt County has 3 Mbps download speed service available

Humboldt County has approximately 5,733 households and relies heavily on fixed wireless and mobile broadband services with significantly less cable and DSL services available. There is currently no fiber service available. This puts the county slightly below the state average in broadband availability.

Percentage of Humboldt County households served by broadband technology platform:

- Cable – 63.69%

- DSL – 62.69%

- Fiber – 0%

- Fixed Wireless – 86.6%

- Mobile Wireless – 97.51%

Connect Nevada has partnered with the Governor’s Broadband Task Force and is working with broadband providers to speed up the expansion of broadband in unserved and underserved areas. The organization is pinpointing remaining gaps in Nevada’s broadband availability.

Targeting School Lunch Programs to Reach America’s Most Vulnerable

By Chris McGovern, Manager, Research Development, Connected Nation

Across the board, households with lower incomes subscribe to broadband at a lower rate than higher-income households. The presence of this “Affordability Gap” can have a significant effect upon economic growth and opportunity – with the economy moving increasingly online, ensuring that every American has digital skills is crucial to economic growth, education, and workforce development.

But how much of a barrier is affordability? What is the most efficient and effective way of bridging the Affordability Gap? How many non-adopting households would be motivated to adopt broadband through low-cost incentive programs or targeted discounts? Is there any defining demographic characteristic of this community that would allow policymakers to efficiently target such initiatives?

According to a report released by Connected Nation today, titled “Broadband Adoption Among Low-Income Households: Insights from Connected Nation Research,” low-income households with children are at a particularly high risk, and this lack of broadband for such a large number of American schoolchildren affects the education and social welfare of our entire country. This report finds that 32% of households with children where the annual income is less than $25,000 do not have computers in the home, and 61% do not subscribe to home broadband service. In addition, based on our surveys, we estimate that 23% of households with children eligible (or near the eligibility threshold) for free or reduced lunches through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) do not own a computer, and 48% do not subscribe to home broadband service. If these figures are extrapolated to the nation as a whole, that would mean that approximately 2.9-3.9 million low-income households with children don’t have a home computer, and 5.5-8.1 million don’t subscribe to home broadband service.
These results, as well as a more in-depth analysis of barriers to adoption among low-income households, can be found here.

Social Networking: Updating the Status Every Day

By Dev Joshi and John Walker, Research Analysts, Connected Nation

Social networking is one of the most popular activities on the Internet today. Many critics question, though, whether this rise in social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace is beneficial to society. On the one hand, some amazing things have happened through social networking (like the 2009 “Twitter Revolution” in Iran, or the way people used SNS as a lifeline to reach loved ones and offer donations after the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan).

Some, though, have voiced concerns that the growth in social networking sites has come at the detriment of interpersonal relationships, and SNS have been linked with issues ranging from teen depression to narcissistic traits. None can deny, though, that social networking is growing and is no longer just the domain of teens and twenty-somethings.

Connected Nation’s 2010 Residential Technology Assessment shows that nearly one-half of all adults living in states and territories served by Connected Nation (48%, or nearly 39 million adults) communicate with others through SNS. According to our research, adults age 18 to 34 are significantly more likely to use SNS than those 35 or older.

A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows similar results - according to its study, 47% of adults use social networking sites, a figure that has doubled since 2008. The report also shows that adult SNS users are aging, with SNS use among 18-22 year olds decreasing over the past two years while use among adults 35 and older rose.

FCC: Competition is in the Eye of the Beholder

By Chris McGovern, Manager of Research Development for Connected Nation

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just released its 15th Annual Mobile Wireless Competition Report. A lot of people have been waiting with bated breath for this report to be made public, some looking for a stamp of approval for provider activities (like changes in price models and mergers) while others were hoping the report would portray wireless providers as robber barons that have successfully quashed all competition. This 308-page behemoth, though, paints a more complicated picture of a mobile wireless environment where both successes and reasons for concern can be found.

According to the report, about 92% of Americans (or about 262 million people) can choose from two or more mobile broadband providers, but fewer than seven out of ten (67.8%, or about 193 million people) have four or more mobile broadband choices. There is also a rural/urban divide, as only 69% of rural residents have two or more mobile broadband choices, and only 17.3% of rural residents have four or more options. In fact, a measurement of market concentration (the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, or HHI) finds that the wireless market is “Highly Concentrated,” with four major national providers serving over 90 percent of the nation’s mobile wireless subscribers.

Yet not all is gloom and doom. As the FCC report points out, measures of concentration are not necessarily synonymous with a non-competitive market. It turns out the United States is following a global pattern, as mobile markets in many industrialized nations have just 3-4 major providers each. In the U.S. there is little variance in competition between census tracts with different median household incomes; tracts whose median household incomes are below $25,000 have an average of 3.3 mobile broadband providers, compared to 3.7 providers in tracts with median household incomes of $150,000 or more. The consumer price index (CPI) for the cellular market has decreased or remained the same every year since 1999, while the CPI for all goods and services has increased every year but one during that time period. In addition, mobile broadband providers show evidence of both price and non-price competition, a sign of healthy competition between carriers.

I suspect that in the end everyone will pick and choose some data out of this report, depending on the argument they want to make. Are there indicators that mobile competition can be improved upon? Yes, there are. Is there evidence that points to a competitive mobile market? That’s in there, too. Does this report show a market that is too complicated to resort to bumper sticker competitive analysis? Most definitely.