FCC: Roam Zone Referee?

Should the FCC intervene to prevent large carriers from taking advantage of small ones? That was the subtext of the agency's recent public query about whether rules should be imposed to keep local and regional carriers from being bullied into exploitative roaming agreements by large carriers.

Right now, the agency requires carriers to enable manual roaming where the home carrier has no coverage. With manual roaming, subscribers are forwarded to the customer-service departments of local carriers to make payment arrangements on the spot.

But some carriers consider manual roaming a last resort because the process can be cumbersome for consumers.

"Today's CMRS (commercial mobile radio service) customer has gotten so accustomed to automatic roaming that the availability of an automatic connection to a carrier wherever the customer roams is a practical necessity," Corr Wireless wrote in its response to the FCC query.

Corr is a rural wireless carrier in Alabama and one of three carriers that wants the FCC to mandate automatic roaming. According to Corr, the competitive market is not working to prevent abuses of power by large companies.

The rural carrier cited its own recent run-ins with Cingular. Corr has worked with BellSouth Wireless for a number of years and amicably negotiated new roaming terms. But after Bell-South and SBC Wireless formed Cingular, Corr said the nation's second largest carrier began pressuring Corr to reduce roaming rates.

According to Corr, Cingular threatened to set its switches to the A-side cellular block for roaming if Corr refused to comply. Both Cingular and Corr operate on the B-side block. Eventually, according to Corr, Cingular followed through on the threat. The result was a significant loss of revenue for Corr and complaints of poor service from Cingular's customers.

However, Bryan Corr, president & CEO, said he has no plans to take action against Cingular at this point.

"We can roam on other carriers in those areas," he said. "Our concern generally is that if automatic roaming is not mandated, the nationwide carriers will have the ability to squeeze out the smaller carriers because once they have nationwide coverage, they don't need anybody else."

Southern Linc and Pacific Wireless echo Corr's concerns. They want the FCC to mandate automatic roaming for the SMR industry because of the domination of Nextel. Both Southern Linc and Pacific Wireless accused Nextel of refusing to negotiate even manual roaming agreements with them.

According to the two SMR carriers, Nextel cited technical difficulties as a reason for not permitting manual roaming with them. But Southern Linc noted that the technical difficulties have not prevented Nextel from entering into roaming agreements with Clearnet Communications, a Canadian carrier, as well as foreign carriers.

However, Cingular, CTIA, Leap, Nextel, the Rural Cellular Association, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular all oppose an automatic roaming rule on the grounds that it will stifle competition.

"An automatic roaming mandate would encourage companies to forego real investment in 3G technologies and deploy instead a geographically and technically limited system that relies on the 3G networks of other carriers for providing a broader service," Nextel commented.

At the same time, U.S. Cellular urged the FCC to monitor the market for signs of large-carrier abuses. U.S. Cellular commented, "The emergence of these massive national carriers, with all of the power that their scale and scope will inevitably generate, is something qualitatively new in the wireless marketplace. And, as with all large and powerful corporate entities, their existence creates the possibility of anti-competitive abuse."