RWA knows how important commercially reasonable wholesale data roaming rates, terms and conditions are to its membership. RWA continues to urge the FCC to provide additional clarification and direction with regard to whether a particular data roaming rate, term or condition is “commercially reasonable.”
Yesterday, RWA submitted reply comments supporting T-Mobile’s petition for expedited declaratory ruling seeking clarification of the FCC’s data roaming rules. The reply comments also recommended that the FCC go a step further than T-Mobile’s petition and clarify that wholesale data roaming rates are per se commercially unreasonable if they exceed, by any degree, the retail data rates “must have” carriers like AT&T and Verizon charge their own retail customers for those very same data services.
Not surprisingly, every entity that filed comments in this proceeding – with the exception of AT&T and Verizon – supported T-Mobile’s request that the FCC clarify what constitutes “commercially reasonable” under the rules. RWA will continue to advocate on behalf of its member carriers for clarification of the FCC’s data roaming rules.
RWA Supports Confidential Filing of Roaming Agreements
In response to a Petition by NTCH to make inter-provider roaming rates available, RWA filed comments expressing its continued support for FCC action to collect roaming agreements and rates confidentially.
The comments cite rural carriers’ difficulty securing “just,
reasonable, and nondiscriminatory” voice roaming and “commercially reasonable” data roaming rates, terms and conditions and encourage the FCC to direct all carriers to confidentially file their domestic roaming agreements. Doing so would provide the FCC with the information needed to gauge roaming market health.The comments also encouraged the FCC to disallow the use of nondisclosure agreements to remove the shroud of secrecy from roaming negotiations.
Q2 Wireless Metrics Now Available
The latest set of wireless metrics, compiled by Alpina Capital, are now available.
