AT&T, Verizon Line Up Against Competitive Carriers on T-Mobile Data Roaming Claims
The FCC need not intervene in data roaming negotiations between carriers and AT&T and Verizon, each said in comments. The FCC sought comment on a May petition by T-Mobile asking for a declaratory ruling containing guidance and “predictable” enforcement criteria for determining whether the terms of data roaming agreements meet the “commercially reasonable” standard adopted by the commission in its 2011 data roaming order (CD May 28 p9). Comments were posted Thursday and Friday in docket 05-265 (http://bit.ly/1sfqMnR). T-Mobile itself did not file comments.
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AT&T said T-Mobile’s petition is “a document at odds with itself.” T-Mobile offers “a sweepingly broad claim” that the process for negotiating data roaming agreements is “dysfunctional,” AT&T said (http://bit.ly/W3TieH). But T-Mobile also recognizes that carriers have worked out “dozens of commercial agreements under the new rules,” AT&T added. “T-Mobile has not cited a single instance where any provider anywhere in the country has found it necessary to file a complaint with the Commission alleging an inability to obtain commercially reasonable terms, much less demonstrated that the complaint process would be inadequate to address any such claim.” T-Mobile’s request for clarification “would unlawfully rewrite, rather than clarify, those rules in ways that would limit marketplace flexibility, undermine incentives to invest in broadband networks, and constitute prohibited common carriage regulation,” AT&T said.
Verizon said T-Mobile’s petition appeared to arise from a dispute between it and AT&T. That dispute “can and should be resolved through one of the dispute resolution procedures the Commission established -- not through a generic, industry-wide proceeding,” Verizon said (http://bit.ly/1zC1zWN). T-Mobile shouldn’t be allowed to “turn a two-party dispute into an alleged industry-wide problem in need of a prescriptive regulatory solution,” Verizon said.
But four public interest groups filed joint comments in support of T-Mobile. The FCC hasn’t fully addressed “the dysfunction in the data roaming market,” said the Benton Foundation, Common Cause, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. “As the Commission determined in its 2011 Data Roaming Order, AT&T and Verizon have both the incentive and the capability to raise data roaming rates (or deny data roaming entirely) and thus disadvantage its competitors,” the groups said (http://bit.ly/1rlOnQQ). “Nothing has changed since 2011 to alter these conclusions."
Sprint also supported T-Mobile’s request for clarity. The guidance T-Mobile pursues “is necessary to remove this lingering regulatory uncertainty across the marketplace,” Sprint said (http://bit.ly/1rlNM1A). T-Mobile’s proposed benchmarks “will provide additional points of reference for evaluating whether roaming terms meet the commercially reasonable standard,” Sprint said.
Competitive carriers “continue to face significant difficulties in reaching data roaming agreements with the largest national carriers,” said the Competitive Carriers Association, supporting T-Mobile (http://bit.ly/1sfgWlO). Benchmarks proposed by T-Mobile “would provide sorely-needed guidance to the industry and advance the purposes of the data roaming requirements, while maintaining flexibility in carriers’ negotiations,” CCA said. The Rural Wireless Association also filed in support of T-Mobile. “Without changes to the wholesale data roaming rates charged by must-have carriers, rural carriers that offer their customers nationwide services will be forced to operate at a loss and will eventually cease to exist,” RWA said (http://bit.ly/1noDXLi).