T-Mobile has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission with the hope that it will help define “commercially reasonable” data roaming rates.
T-Mobile does not want the FCC to set or regulate roaming rates for mobile data, but it does want the FCC to offer some guidance on what is acceptable. In its request, T-Mobile called out AT&T for setting what it believes are unreasonable rates.
“T-Mobile has been forced to throttle and cap its customers’ ability to roam on AT&T’s data network due to AT&T’s unreasonably high data roaming rates. This is precisely the type of impact on consumers that the ‘commercially reasonable’ standard should be interpreted to prevent.Data roaming traffic carried by the substantial majority of roaming partners other than AT&T is generally offered at rates that do not require throttling or capping.” T-Mobile asked the FCC to act quickly, as some of its “most critical roaming agreements” are set to expire at the end of the year.
T-Mobile was given a generous roaming agreement from AT&T in the wake of the larger carrier’s failed attempt to purchase T-Mobile, but the exact scale of that agreement is unknown. The FCC mandated in 2011 that carriers allow competing devices to roam on their data networks at fair prices.
