Excellent news for small cellular carriers, and bad news for giant ones today — the Federal Communications Commission has decided to mandate data roaming by a three-2 vote. Simply put, major carriers like AT&T and Verizon shall be required to allow you to check your email and perform VoIP calls over their federally-licensed airwaves whether you’re actually paying a regional carrier in your cellular coverage instead — just as they’ve been required to do for voice and messaging since 2007 . As you may imagine, Big Red and Ma Bell aren’t exactly jumping for joy on the news, with both threatening to slow expansion into niche markets in the event that they’ll be forced to share their infrastructure. The victorious members of the FCC claim that this doesn’t constitute common carriage as the big boys still get to barter “commercially reasonable” rates. Due to the fact two dissenting commissioners say that it’s, indeed, common carriage, though, and thus beyond the powers granted to the FCC, we imagine we haven’t heard the last of this debate. What happened to simply “incenting ” the carriers to return to an agreement? Find statements from most every concerned party on the links below.
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