@jbtaylor on tech

If you use a wireless phone, it's likely you're using it for more than just a phone. If you're like most people I know, you're using a lot of data, too.

For some time now, the FCC has required wireless carriers to offer just and reasonable rates on voice roaming. It's now considering making the same requirement for data roaming.

Pretty much everyone in the wireless industry supports this move, except for... wait for it... that's right: AT&T and Verizon. They want to increase their 60% market share and one way to do it is to charge competitors excessive rates for data roaming. If smaller carriers can't offer a smart phone which can be used nationally, it will be increasingly hard to compete.

The wireless companies who support the FCC's data roaming proposal wrote a letter to every Member of Congress today which explains the issue better than I can.

The text is below:

The Wireless Industry Representatives are a united group representing the entire wireless industry, with the exception of only AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and collectively serve more than 100 million subscribers. We seek your support to extend the current automatic voice roaming requirement to data services so that consumers can access their home carrier’s data services wherever they travel.The 2010 National Broadband Plan recognized the importance of automatic data roaming to facilitate new carrier entry and to promote competition. The Wireless Industry Representatives have invested and continue to invest billions of dollars and employ tens of thousands of workers to build out and operate their wireless networks. This investment is threatened, however, if the right to data roaming is not assured:

• Consumers expect and deserve access to both voice and data services regardless of where they travel within the United States. Access to e-mail, text messaging and the web, regardless of location, has become just as critical to consumers as voice services.
• Without data roaming, smaller carriers will be unable to attract the customers necessary to maintain current networks or invest in expanded broadband coverage. It is the operation and construction of these competing networks that creates jobs and protects consumers.
• Consumers in small and rural communities whose home carriers are less likely to have a national footprint will feel the greatest impacts without data roaming.
• There will continue to be an incentive for smaller carriers to build-out their networks to reduce their roaming costs and gain the advantages of owner’s economics because carriers that provide roaming services will be paid just and reasonable rates for this service.
• The FCC has authority under existing laws and regulations to extend roaming obligations to data services.

In the end, automatic data roaming is pro-consumer, pro-competition, and pro-investment policy. It will encourage the construction of competing mobile broadband networks, spurring jobs, competition and economic growth. If the FCC does not act promptly to implement a data roaming requirement, consumers will suffer, investment will wane and jobs will be lost, slowing down economic recovery. We strongly urge the immediate extension of roaming obligations to data services.

The letter was signed by officials from the following companies and associations:

• Cellular South
• Cincinnati Bell
• Clearwire
• Cricket Communications
• Metro PCS
• National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NCTA)
• Ntelos
• Organization from the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO)
• Rural Cellular Association
• Rural Telecommunications Group
• SouthernLinc Wireless
• Sprint
• T-Mobile USA