Mobile Future, CCA at Odds Over Net Effect of FCC Data Roaming Rules
Mobile Future and the Competitive Carriers Association clashed over whether the FCC should rethink its 2011 data roaming declaratory ruling in light on the aftereffects on the market. Mobile Future fired first in a July letter to the FCC in…
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docket 05-265. “Despite the Commission’s intention to promote investment, evidence suggests that some requesting carriers have used the data roaming rules to rely on host providers’ investment in networks, rather than deploying their own,” Mobile Future said: “In at least one case,” a competitive carrier "actually shut down an existing network in south-central Kansas and central Oklahoma in 2012, choosing to rely instead on roaming as a cost-cutting measure.” CCA President Steve Berry disagreed, telling the FCC: “The FCC should dismiss Mobile Future’s recent letter, which not only is incorrect, but also brings nothing new to the table on a decision the Bureau has already made. Mobile Future’s claims that guidance in the Declaratory Ruling will discourage investment have already been disproved by the large amount of investment the industry has made in wireless infrastructure building-out 4G LTE wireless networks.” Berry also said Mobile Future doesn't address the effect on consumers “who are most impacted by roaming prices.” Absent “reasonable roaming agreements, carriers will face higher roaming prices, and these higher prices will hit consumers where it hurts -- in the pocketbook,” he said. Verizon, meanwhile, fired back at Sprint, which filed a recent letter at the FCC challenging the commission's pursuit of revised data roaming rules. “These tired arguments are part of its campaign for artificially low roaming rates so it can avoid building out its own network as Verizon has,” Verizon said Monday in a filing. “The Commission should reject Sprint’s self-serving proposals and maintain its long-standing roaming policies that appropriately encourage carriers to expand and improve their wireless networks.”