Posted on CommLawBlog on June 5, 2014 by Donald Evans
Sometimes even nationwide carriers need a little reasonableness.
The rates that carriers charge one another for providing roaming service have never been subject to precise regulatory limits. Voice roaming has historically been treated as subject to the traditional common carrier standard, i.e., voice roaming rates must be "just and reasonable" and "not unreasonably discriminatory". And, since 2011, data roaming service - which the FCC has chosen to treat as an "information service" not subject to common carrier regulation - must be available on "commercially reasonable" terms. Neither standard lends itself to ready quantification, a fact which major carriers have taken advantage of.
As it turns out, this lack of clarity has worked to the disadvantage of at least one big carrier as well as many smaller ones.
But now, efforts on a couple of fronts are being made to graft some useful flesh onto the historically bony standards. A small carrier has filed a complaint alleging that Verizon's roaming rates, both voice and data, are unreasonable (commercially and otherwise) and discriminatory. And, more recently, T-Mobile USA, Inc. (T-MO) -- by no means a small fish in the telecom pond -- has asked the FCC to issue an expedited declaratory ruling about how the term "commercially reasonable" should be interpreted in the context of data roaming rate negotiations.
Continued:
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Neal McLain