Greedy, corrupt bankers and lazy, imagination-challenged auto manufacturers have already shown the world what happens when corporations get too big to fail, but do. We pay the price.
The continuing economic crisis, the waning supply of natural resources and the limitations of agribusiness have all shown us that bigger is not always better and that local banks, alternative energy and smaller, privately-owned farms are necessary, healthy and competitive elements of our global commerce engine. By balking at proposed rules designed to automatically extend mobile data roaming to independent operating companies, Tier 1 wireless operators are heading down the same path toward being too big too fail by potentially eliminating small wireless operators from the picture.
AT&T and Verizon have both said that forced roaming agreements will take away the incentive for small operators to invest in their own networks and that they are voluntarily negotiating roaming agreements anyway without the need for mandates.
The problem with this is that allowing large operators to pick and choose who they collaborate with is in essence giving them the power to choose who survives and who doesn’t — if in fact roaming is enough to put a competitor away.
Tom Sugrue, vice president of governmental affairs at T-Mobile, says it is. “A data roaming rule [is] critical to ensure that T-Mobile and other carriers can be competitive with their larger rivals,” he said.
The days of the forgiving mobile user who accepted dropped calls and clipping as the quirks of a new technology are over. Apple still seems to get away with its idiosyncrasies, but that won’t last long. Users want their connectivity and they want it everywhere. That includes the farm fields of Nebraska and the hills of Appalachia. They won’t tolerate the lack of roaming for long and they will blame the rural operator for it.
As Steven Berry, CEO of the Rural Cellular Association has said many times and most recently this week in a statement filed with the FCC, “…data roaming is the fundamental building block to ensuring ubiquitous, nationwide broadband services to consumers and public safety.”
