Regional wireless carriers and the Public Interest Spectrum Coali...

petition, MetroPCS and nTelos asked the FCC to extend the time that Verizon must honor Alltel’s roaming agreements to seven years from four to give carriers a chance to roll out Long Term Evolution wireless technology. LTE will allow CDMA carriers to roam on networks that aren’t compatible now, they said. The carriers also asked the FCC to require Verizon to provide automatic data roaming for seven years. In another joint petition, U.S. Cellular and three other wireless carriers asked the FCC to require Verizon to reduce its universal service support in equal amounts annually over five years, until it’s gone or the FCC defines a new USF mechanism. Separately, Leap Wireless asked the commission to clarify that roaming partners can choose to apply their existing roaming agreements with Alltel or Verizon in full, not just the rates. And the FCC should confirm that the roaming agreement chosen will apply to the future service areas and spectrum bands of each carrier, Leap said. Public Service Communications urged the commission to strengthen roaming conditions, temporarily ban handset exclusivity arrangements and require Verizon to sell additional Alltel cellular properties, “where overlapped by Verizon cellular operations and/or where the merger would result in an excessive concentration of spectrum.” The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition asked the FCC to reconsider including broadband radio service spectrum (BRS) in its spectrum screen and to impose a condition requiring an open network allowing customers to access legal content, attach devices and run applications of their choice. The coalition previously made its BRS argument in a reconsideration petition on the Sprint Nextel and Clearwire partnership (CD Dec 10 p8). A sixth petition, by the Rural Telecommunications Group, was filed earlier last week (CD Dec 11 p8).