FCC Approves Controversial Data Roaming Rules

Here is the text of the FCC press release:

 

Well said, Dave. And of course you know with both Verizon and AT&T, their mantra is "Do as I say, not as I do". This is another sign, IMO, these two are a monopoly needing to be regulated. I'm glad this happened.

Of course it will probably stir them both up to raise rates to make up for the tons of lost revenue they'll lose by playing fair with their smaller competition...

Heaven forbid their profits fall from $4.6 billion to $4.575 billion. They're gonna have to lay 100,000 people off to deal with such a loss... After all, shareholders will be in their pants.

Yes, a rant there, and I have no sympathy for either.

 

I'm also glad this happened. This is becoming a nation of a duopoly in wireless. I love how the carriers _____, moan and groan about how this will cause them to tighten investment. When I seriously doubt that it will. If they don't invest, someone else will. First, they will not allow someone else to do it. They're too arrogant for that. Second, they know very well if they don't keep up with demand, customers will either leave or just cancel all together and we all know they don't want that to happen. Simply put, they're all talking out there ___ because they will invest. They can't just sit by and not, they will either go under and someone else will along.

They're just mad because these rules will no longer allow the duopoly to use roaming rules and rates as a way to stifle competition.

My phrase to the two....cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it :cheers:

 

Data roaming should become even more possible and useful with many carriers' LTE build out. We should have rules in advance of capability.

With the big Four possibly shrinking to the big Three, how are the little Thirty (and more) going to be treated?

COtech

 

The feds allowed the big two to get as big as they are by granting them repeated mergers and acquisitions. Therefore these carriers shouldn't complain about having to offer fairly priced data roaming agreements to the smaller competition now. IMO

 

Hate to add an essentially "me too" comment, but I think this is a critical issue.
The big players will continue to build for their own reasons. Due to their larger network and seamless roaming inside of it (no drops for handoffs), their networks will always have an advantage.
Plus, when customers of the smaller carriers do roam, they do get paid. Historically, (Alltel comes to mind) we've had carriers that made most of their business at least initially through roaming dollars).

Anyway, this is one of the issues that had it gone the other way would be a definite death knell for the smaller competitors, and really a no-brainer for consumers and competition.

-Dan

 

Although I can understand the majority view of allowing the smaller carriers to have access for their customers, I disagree with the ruling. The larger carriers ave spent the time and money to build out their networks and the smaller companies have not (or do not have there resources to do so). Now the FCC will let the smaller carriers to use the networks at a rate the FCC specifies. The smaller players will never invest in their networks as long as they get a cheap ride on the existing networks. Not that I advocate letting the big boys charge anything they want, but the rate for the smaller carriers ought to be high enough to compensate the network owners but still give the smaller network an incentive to build out their own facilities to get a lower rate.

This is like the "Magic Jack" business plan. They offer phone service at a rate that they cannot possibly make any money. They make their $$ from charging the larger players termination fees for each call. The FCC has recently quashed that scheme. I expect that MJ will have to raise their rates or go belly up

 

The issue with what you're saying is that the FCC has already stated that the rates will be negotiated between the two carriers. The FCC will not set the rate. Another issue is that the big carriers get money from the small carriers and so there is no free ride and I seriously doubt that it would be cheap. That would be said if the small carriers got to use the big carriers' network and not pay anything....rates will be negotiated, its not a free ride. The FCC is saying that the big carriers cannot lock out the small carriers all together and only that the rates have to be reasonable...which would apply to any transaction...on anything.

In general, the big carriers have been allowed (erroneously) to merge themselves into the top two positions that control an overwhelming percentage of the market place. At this point, its virtually impossible for the smaller to compete without having the rent access to the bigger networks. The market needs competition and the bigger carriers will now NOT be allowed the price access so the smaller carriers can't afford and can't compete. This ruling is a step forward in what is going to become a virtual duopoly.

 

Yep what's so bad about making some roaming revenue from the smaller carriers? The only reason they would want to eliminate roaming is to try and put the smaller carriers out of business.

 

Exactly. The bigger carriers are acting like they will not get money from these roaming deals. What a crock...

 

One aspect that seems missing here is the part about how no one directly pays for roaming anymore but the carrier itself. The main reason your VzW phone won't roam onto Sprint everywhere isn't because of a lack of an agreement with Sprint but it's because they don't want to pay your roaming fees and in the grand scheme of things, rate is trivial, any dollar amount is too high to them.

All the carriers want you to use their own network, even when the coverage is terrible because they're not having to exchange money/minutes with another carrier. FCC regulations or not, very little will change in regards to roaming unless the carriers are forced to let their own customers roam freely.

 

I actually agree with this. As is it already, Verizon doesn't even allow in-market roaming. I've had vzw since October and have yet to once see my phone roam.
And like you said about terrible coverage situation, it has been a common problem on Sprint forever that their phones will favor a -114dbm signal that is completely useless over a good roaming signal. Heck, they even took out the "roam only" option years ago. I'm sure the carriers want to charge users for roaming, but none of the big guys could possibly get away with charging that anymore.

 

I've left my Alltel (Allied Wireless) phone roaming non-stop on Verizon (sometimes Sprint)
for well over a year now and I haven't heard anything from them about using over 8000 minutes of non-stop off network usage each month.

I can force my phone to use Alltel's towers or Sprint or Verizon's towers in my town.
Same thing in the larger city of Asheville NC, where I have a choice of US Cellular, Verizon or Sprint's signal,
I always pick what I'm in the mood for, but it's usually US Cellular when I goto Asheville.

 

I have an old LG phone and I know the codes & settings to get into the phone.
All I had to do was program a local roaming SID into the phone and lockout the home SID
so my phone could then look (only) at the roaming signal as the most preferred home signal.
I can undo the change at anytime if I feel like it. No blinking icon even though it's roaming

 

Ha well I've had the thing 5 years this September, surprised it still even works the way & amount I use it.

No worries though, I have some backups of a similar model phone to my current LG AX4270
(the LG AX390) which I've given to other family members with the same settings programmed into them.
Most of my family's phones are stuck in constant roaming on Verizon thanks to me.

Though VZW is now preferred anyway in former Alltel areas near me like Greenville/Spartanburg,
there's still Alltel towers here in my town that our phones would rather lock onto if I didn't change anything.

 

The portion of Alltel that Verizon couldn't keep, and that didn't goto AT&T was bought by ATNI.
Atlantic Tele-Network bought some nearly 900,000 Alltel customers & spectrum in 6 states,
and the company named it's new wireless division Allied Wireless Communications Corp. d/b/a ALLTEL.
They are now the owners of alltel.com and Alltel's 800 number 1-800-ALLTEL-1.

So the former Alltel corp was merged into Verizon, but some markets kept the Alltel brand
that ATNI bought and are under license to continue to operate as Alltel for at least the next 14 years (up to 28 years).

See this post for more on the new Alltel:
http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/alltel-forum/78811-alltel-wireless-set-re-establish-brand.html

 

Actually, it will be harder than you think. The build outs will be on different bands, so unless devices are built with multiple antennas, roaming won't always be possible.

 

Was Chad included in the deal?

 

I believe so, I've been seeing many new ads on TV featuring Chad just this week.

The latest one with a guy dressed up in a hot dog costume outside a business as his 2nd job,
just to "afford his cell phone," then the guy's daughter and Chad walk up and tell him about
Alltel's new plans which offers unlimited talk & text for $60/month, or unlimited talk + text & data for $90/month.