Appeals court rules Verizon must offer data roaming agreements to competitors
No, Verizon (VZ), you won’t be able to weasel out of your obligations to offer fair roaming agreements for wireless data services. Per Reuters, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission has the right to tell Verizon that it needs to offer fair and reasonable data roaming agreements to its competitors. Judge David Tatel, speaking for the three-judge panel, said that “Verizon may choose not to provide mobile-Internet service” if it doesn’t like the roaming agreement mandate that “merely defines the form mobile-Internet service must take for those who seek a license to offer it.” The FCC passed the roaming agreement mandate in 2011 with the intention of helping smaller carriers offer their customers nationwide data coverage by piggybacking on big carriers’ data networks in exchange for paying roaming fees.
