Roaming Revision Order Expected to Be Pulled From Friday Agenda
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin doesn’t have the three votes he needs for an order making changes to the agency’s automatic roaming rules approved a year ago, agency officials said. A majority of commissioners want more time to address concerns about the in-market exclusion provision raised by numerous carriers. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless offered an additional concession on roaming as it sought FCC approval of its purchase of Alltel.
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If a vote on the roaming item is delayed, as expected, Friday’s agenda meeting likely will not take place. Martin circulated roaming revisions Aug. 4, which would limit but not eliminate the home market exclusion. Under the exclusion, a carrier need not honor a roaming request by a counterpart with spectrum in a market, even if the government hasn’t cleared the spectrum
Martin “doesn’t have the votes,” said one agency official. “Right now I would be very surprised if there is a meeting Friday,” said a second. The one wild card is that Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps have made a counterproposal on roaming addressing many of the concerns raised by numerous carriers -- including a requirement that a carrier that no longer wants to provide roaming must justify the denial to the FCC.
The commission’s two Democrats are expected to oppose the order unless Martin agrees to major revisions. Commissioner Robert McDowell is concerned about the potential to cause market disruption and believes the FCC should look more closely at the issue, an FCC official said. Commissioner Deborah Tate also has expressed concerns, officials said, but both favor only a brief delay. Given travel and vacation schedules, it has been difficult for commissioners and their staff to give the issue the attention it deserves, agency officials said.
In comments filed at the FCC, Verizon Wireless and Alltel made an additional roaming concession as they sought approval of their merger. Verizon Wireless, the acquiring carrier, said it’s willing to honor Alltel’s existing roaming agreements with each regional, small or rural carriers for the full term of the agreement or for two years from the closing date, “which ever occurs later.”
Laurie Itkin, Leap director of government affairs, said the latest concession won’t alleviate her company’s concerns with the merger. “From Leap’s perspective that’s a very minor concession compared with what needs to be done,” she said. “What needs to be done is elimination of the in-market exception, reasonable rates and data roaming.”
At the FCC, late lobbying focused on Tate, at least based on the last round of ex parte filings. T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and the Rural Cellular Association all reported on meetings with her or her wireless advisor Wayne Leighton just before the FCC put the roaming item on the sunshine notice Friday, which ended lobbying until the FCC votes or the item or it is struck from the agenda.
“The rule as crafted, even with the changes reportedly being considered, could help recreate the wireless duopoly that Congress and the Commission have strived so hard over the past years to eliminate,” T-Mobile said in an ex parte filing. T-Mobile said only AT&T and Verizon Wireless are asking the FCC not to make major changes to the in-market exclusion.
“AT&T and Verizon Wireless, respectively, own the largest GSM and CDMA networks in the United States and, in recent years, they have acquired many of the facilities based regional and rural carriers with which T-Mobile and other carriers had mutually-beneficial roaming arrangements,” T- Mobile said. This series of consolidations increases the incentive and ability of AT&T and Verizon Wireless to deny roaming to others, and the home market exclusion in its present form allows them to do so in large areas nationwide even when denial is unjust or unreasonable.”
AT&T said in an ex parte filing that James Cicconi and Robert Quinn, its top two regulatory officials, spoke by phone with Tate Friday. Tom Tauke, the top lobbyist for Verizon, spoke with Tate the same day in another phone call. “Some parties have argued that the home roaming exception should be further modified to limit the exception even for carriers who have had unencumbered access to their spectrum,” Verizon Wireless said. “Verizon Wireless has not supported such a modification because it would reverse the Commission’s own findings in this proceeding barely one year ago and would conflict with the Commission’s goals of promoting facilities- based competition.”