AT&T, Small Carriers at Odds Over Need for Roaming Shot Clock

The small carrier filing came in response to a June petition for reconsideration filed by Blanca Telephone (http://xrl.us/bmmens), on which the Wireless Bureau sought comment last month. Blanca asked the FCC to “reconsider and reverse” a decision in its April data roaming order not to adopt a time limit for roaming negotiations. The rules went into effect in May. U.S. Cellular, the Rural Cellular Association, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Rural Telecommunications Group, NTELOS, PRWireless and Revol Wireless joined Metro in signing the filing (http://xrl.us/bmmenq).

"Despite the Commission’s laudable efforts to foster roaming arrangements and further promote consumer access to nationwide mobile broadband service, the ... Order does not impose a sufficiently concrete timetable to incent nationwide carriers to negotiate commercially reasonable agreements on a timely basis with small, rural and mid-tier carriers,” the small carriers said. “Without a specific timetable, the largest carriers -- who have openly opposed the Commission’s roaming rules -- will have the incentive and the ability to delay any roaming arrangement.” They said their concerns are not “academic” and are justified by what has happened since the rules took effect. “The Commenters have experienced continued foot-dragging, including unnecessary delays and stonewalling tactics, by large, nationwide carriers,” they said. “The result is the unavailability of data roaming to more customers serviced by rural, small, and mid-tier carriers and reduced competition to the detriment of the public."

AT&T said the FCC already considered and rejected a shot clock (http://xrl.us/bmmeot) in the data roaming order. “As the Commission noted ’some data roaming negotiations may be more complex or fact-intensive than others and are likely to require more time,'” AT&T said. The FCC said “'[a] single time limit for all negotiations would not be appropriate in such cases,'” AT&T said: The order opens the door for a carrier to ask the FCC for a time limit, but rightly finds that this should be considered “on a case by case basis."

Small carrier NTCH also supported Blanca, saying it shares the carrier’s concerns that without a shot clock negotiations could go on indefinitely (http://xrl.us/bmmepd). “We are aware of circumstances where representatives of the Big Two (Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless) have taken months to engage fully in roaming negotiations,” NTCH said. “Meetings are cancelled, personnel change, people go on vacation, proposals are reviewed by other people, etc. with the end result that a negotiation which could have been completed in a matter of days or a few weeks consumes literally months or even years.”