WASHINGTON Americans talk more on their cell phones than Europeans, although mobile phones are more common in Europe, the Federal Communications Commission reported Thursday at its regular meeting.
The five-member commission also endorsed a report showing that high-speed access to the Internet is gaining a toehold in the United Sates but only one household in 50 has it.
The commission, relying on market analysts' figures, estimated that Americans are averaging 221 minutes per month on their cell phones this year, compared with 145 for Europeans.
The FCC said cell phone use averages 204 minutes in Sweden, 186 in the United Kingdom, 182 in France, 137 in Spain, 132 in Finland and 123 in Germany.
Like wired phones, cell phones are less expensive in the United States than in Europe. Americans can sign up for monthly plans that permit them to make calls to and from anywhere in the United States, at any time, for only 10 or 20 cents a minute.
In Europe, calling over far shorter distances from one European country to another is far more expensive and pricing plans more complex.
Most local telephone companies in the United States charge a flat monthly fee on wireline phones, no matter how many or how long the calls.
The FCC said that in Chattanooga, Tenn., a company has successfully experimented with offering local wireless service on the same unlimited terms at $29.99 a month.
"Americans are used to unlimited time to talk," said Thomas J.
Sugrue, who prepared the report endorsed by the commission for transmission to Congress, told the commissioners.
In percentage terms more people have cell phones in Europe two out of three in Finland, nearly six in 10 in Sweden, more than half in Italy and two out of five in the United Kingdom, compared with fewer than one in three in the United States, the report said.
But in absolute numbers the United States has more cell phones and the number is growing quickly, the report said.
Europeans say that their mobile phones, which all rely on the same system, are easier to use than the several different systems in the United States. But the FCC commissioners said that their decision to allow systems to compete leads to more, better and cheaper cell phones.
"We've been criticized for allowing different technologies to bloom," said commissioner Susan Ness. "It's messy ... but it's the most productive way." In its other report, the FCC found that 2.8 million subscribers now have advanced telecommunications, but that rural Americans, inner city consumers, low-income consumers, minority areas and tribal areas are vulnerable to being left behind.
"I am troubled" that such groups "are at heightened risk of not having access to advanced services," said commissioner Gloria Tristani. She said the report appeared to show that high-speed data penetration was below one-quarter of one percent in some rural Western states.
(Reuter)