Small Carriers Say, Let Us Roam!

It's safe to say that if you have trouble with AT&T service, you won't be running down the street to knock on CEO Glenn Lurie's door. That's the province of the nation's smallest wireless carriers, the 100 members of the Competitive Carriers of America (CCA), local companies that provide service to about 25 million people. You may never have heard of Cellcom, C Spire, Horry Telephone, or Farmers Mutual, but they cover small-town America with a 'hyper-local' verve, said Steve Berry, the CCA's president. Many of them are decades-old and deeply involved in their communities. Horry sponsors local sports teams. Cellcom runs a They can provide solid networks, too. Berry said he was just down in South Carolina with coffeehouse (photo at left). And if you have a problem, you know where to find the boss. 'Some of these guys say, if they're not at the office, just come to my house,' Berry said. 'They distinguish themselves by quality of service and good customer care.' Farmers Telephone, a cooperative offering service in five counties. Their new LTE network is delivering 40 megabits down and 18 megabits up, he said. There's just one catch: because people actually do leave their home counties, the smaller carriers need bigger carriers for nationwide roaming. That used to be less of a problem when 'regional' carriers like Alltel, Cricket, and various Cellular One-branded carriers were around. But now that they've all been snapped up by the four nationwide carriers, what's a small guy to do? 'Over the last decade the [AT&T/Verizon] duopoly has emerged, and they really don't feel like they need anyone else to better serve their customers, so they don't want relationships with these smaller carriers,' Berry said. AT&T won't offer the smaller carriers roaming deals at all, and while Verizon is partnering with rural carriers, it's doing so on terms that many of them don't like. Verizon's partnership program gives rural carriers access to Verizon's nationwide LTE spectrum and devices, but Verizon maintains ownership of the airwaves. Enter Sprint and T-Mobile 'You can't use your own spectrum. You have to use Verizon's spectrum and Verizon's core, and essentially lease it back from Verizon,' he said. 'I call it the Tom Sawyer program: you whitewash my fence and I get to take credit for the network you've built.'

We're seeing this drama unfold in Canada, as well. Regional carriers Videotron and Eastlink want to expand beyond their bases in Quebec and the Maritimes, but they've been complaining to the Canadian government that the three major carriers there don't offer them affordable 4G roaming rates. The government is looking into the issue and may have a decision on what to do by the end of the year, according to Canadian press reports.Fortunately, we don't live in a country with only two major carriers, or even three. Sprint and T-Mobile have been helping out CDMA and GSM rural carriers, respectively, with much friendlier roaming terms. The little guys have something to offer them, too: Sprint and T-Mobile both lack rural coverage, so arrangements with smaller carriers can greatly expand their coverage maps. 'T-Mobile has been very willing to have 4G roaming relationships with our smaller carriers,' Berry said. Sprint, meanwhile, has reached out to put smaller carriers' spectrum bands in its devices, helping to create a wholesale ecosystem of 4G phones that the little guys can buy. 'Sprint's offer is, we'll make the entire Sprint portfolio open to you if you partner with us,' he said. That's helping to keep the smaller carriers alive. The small-business small-town carriers may yet survive because the FCC recently handed them a lifeline in the upcoming AWS-3 and 600MHz auctions, Berry said. The big carriers wanted the auctions to come in big spectrum blocks across large geographical areas, so they could easily knit together nationwide networks. That would price out the little guys, though. The FCC agreed to auction off 600MHz in small enough areas that the little guys will be able to afford it, Berry said. Yes, There's Hope Still, though, for a five-county rural network in South Carolina to be able to compete in the spectrum market against AT&T, the FCC will need to keep tilting the playing field a little bit in the smaller guys' direction. The smaller carriers will likely sell off some of their existing spectrum to be able to afford 600MHz, but smart ones will succeed, he said. 'We're going to see a period of spectrum alignment and adjustment, and those that are successful in getting their game plan out, they'll have a chance to not only exist and survive but to do so very competitively,' he said.