Sprint’s LTE roaming initiative continues to gather steam as the carrier today announced new agreements with 15 rural and regional carriers as part of its Rural Roaming Preferred Provider program. The deals provide Sprint with access to LTE coverage in rural areas outside of its native coverage footprint, while providing the rural operators with access to Sprint’s larger LTE footprint.
Carriers named as part of the new round of agreements include:
—Bluegrass Cellular (Kentucky)
—Blue Wireless (New York and Pennsylvania)
—Pine Belt Wireless (Alabama)
—Pioneer Cellular (Oklahoma and Kansas)
—Public Service Wireless (Alabama and Georgia)
—Syringa Wireless (Idaho)
—Strata Networks (Utah, Wyoming and Colorado)
—Silver Star Wireless (Wyoming and Idaho)
—All West Wireless (Wyoming and Utah)
—NNTC (Colorado)
—Snake River Personal Communications Service (Oregon)
—CTC Telecom (Idaho)
—South Central Communications (Utah)
—Custer Telephone Wireless (Idaho)
—Breakaway Wireless (Utah)
The carriers join the dozen operators that had previously joined Sprint’s LTE roaming program, pushing roaming coverage to more than 38 million potential customers across 565,000 square miles in 27 states. Sprint recently reported its LTE network covered 254 million potential customers at the end of the second quarter.
The roaming deals are part of a previously announced relationship with wireless carrier trade group the Competitive Carriers Association and tied to a previously announced agreement between Sprint and CCA announced at the CCA trade show earlier this year. That deal calls for the association’s carrier members to tap into CCA’s Data Services Hub as a clearinghouse for reciprocal roaming agreements with Sprint. The carrier will also work with CCA to promote a device ecosystem that will include 700 MHz Band Class 12 support into devices that are also compatible with Sprint’s LTE and CDMA services across the 800 MHz and 1.9 GHz band.
“I am very pleased Sprint has signed agreements with 15 additional carriers and is committed to working with smaller rural and regional carriers,” said CCA President and CEO Steve Berry, in a statement. “Competitive carriers must have a pathway to 4G LTE technologies, and Sprint’s solution will help them achieve this critical goal. I encourage every CCA member to look at Sprint’s program, and I look forward to our continued work with Sprint on CCA’s Data Access Hub and Device Hub, which will bring numerous additional benefits to competitive carriers and their consumers. This innovative approach will allow small carriers to remain vibrant, independent competitors in the marketplace.”
Sprint said it is also continuing to work on its Small Market Alliance for Rural Transformation agreement with NetAmerica Alliance. That agreement will provide CCA members with the ability to lease 800 MHz and 1.9 GHz spectrum from Sprint in markets where the carrier said it did not plan on launching LTE services. In gaining the spectrum resources, rural carriers would agree to build out LTE services compliant with Sprint’s Network Vision program and include a reciprocal roaming agreement. Carriers taking advantage of the Sprint spectrum will tap into network core services provided by Sprint and NetAmerica.
NetAmerica said that partnership has so far resulted in preliminary agreements with approximately 20 carriers looking to build out more than 300,000 square miles of network coverage.
There was no word from Sprint as to whether any of the rural operators had taken advantage of Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son’s offer of financial assistance in building out rural LTE coverage. Son made the offer during a keynote address at the CCA event earlier this year.
Roaming challenges
Wireless roaming continues to be a significant issue for smaller operators looking for coverage parity with the nation’s two largest operators Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. Both of those carriers claim more than 300 million pops covered with LTE services, but have so far not offered up roaming access to their networks for domestic operators.
T-Mobile US has been pressing the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with clarifying the “commercially reasonable” standard in its 2011 data roaming rule.
“The FCC recognized the growing disparity in bargaining power in 2011, and ordered that data roaming must occur on ‘commercially reasonable’ terms and conditions,” wrote Kathleen Ham, VP of federal regulatory affairs at T-Mobile US in a blog post this week. “Unfortunately, ‘commercially reasonable’ means different things to different carriers, and to AT&T and Verizon it means charging whatever they want. By imposing unreasonably high roaming rates, T-Mobile and other competitors of the ‘big two’ are forced to restrict their customers’ data usage while roaming.”
Both AT&T and Verizon Communications have come out against the request, with AT&T claiming that its smaller rival was asking the FCC to “eviscerate” its previous ruling and upset the “careful balance” the FCC had established in “ensuring that mobile wireless providers can obtain data roaming arrangements on reasonable terms while preserving incentives to invest in broadband networks.”
“There is no justification for granting T-Mobile’s petition — in fact, according to T-Mobile’s own economist, wholesale roaming rates have trended ‘downward strongly’ in recent years, and the average wholesale roaming rates paid by T-Mobile have fallen nearly 70% since 2011 and continue to decline,” explained Joan Marsh, VP of federal regulatory affairs for AT&T.
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