FCC Mandates that AT&T and Verizon Allow Data Roaming

I don't believe the FCC has the authority to enforce such action. I understand that the intent is to help smaller carriers and consumers, but my question is how effective this move really will be. If it does help to bolster smaller rural carriers, then I suppose I can justify this action. Else, this is simply a move to increase its power.

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"Today's action represents a new level of unwarranted government intervention. By forcing carriers that have invested in wireless infrastructure to make those networks available to competitors that avoid this investment, at a price ultimately determined by the FCC"

Even if one accepts that the FCC has the authority to force carriers to allow data roaming, the most damning part of this is the price being ultimately determined by the FCC.

So I'm thinking about this and how there is something that is just rubbing me the wrong way about this. Try this: It's like having two kids and you tell the older kid, "You share with your little sister. If she tells me that you were not fair in your division of that candy bar I will get on you.
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It's not VZW or AT&T fault that these local carriers don't want to invest in building towers around the country. There's a reason why these big 2 spend the money to expand in order to be #1.

If any agreement is reached then just give them 10kbps speed while on roaming.

This is better for everyone. This doesn't mean that if you're in an area that both companies service you will be able to roam. This means that if you have vzw and don't have coverage but at&t has data you will be to use it. It works the other way around and just might save you if you're out in b.f.e one day.

I live in a rural/small town area of Oklahoma, just 40 miles from Oklahoma City. AT&T has held a license to operate in this area for 22 years. Verizon also has a license for this area. Neither has EVER spent a DIME to cover this area, and Verizon recently publicly said they have no intention of ever building a network in this part of Oklahoma. Both offer service here via roaming with CellularOne and Pioneer Cellular, small regional carriers who DID make the investment in a physical system here. We also have coverage via T-Mobile and Sprint, who did build their own systems, so we are not bereft of options, just not the "Big 2" carriers. So At&T and Verizon can whine and cry all they want about having to allow the small carriers' ...
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What the big issue at hand is the sunset of dedicated voice systems. Within a few years, there will not be "voice traffic" and "data traffic", but all voice traffic will be carried via data, therefore no data roaming will equal no voice roaming. The carriers aren't going to develop a dedicated LTE voice system and a dedicated LTE data system, it's all going to be going through a single LTE data system, including emergency calls such as 911.

Once the carriers start rolling out LTE, it won't take long and they're going to have incentives for consumers to switch so the current GSM and CDMA systems can be decommissioned, just like the analog and TDMA systems of yesteryear. They don't want to maintain many different networks, and the only c...
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When Verizon first chose the LTE path, I saw this coming. A terrible injustice. Get the lawyers ready. They HAVE to fight this.

Now that I've had a moment to think about this, if ATT and VZN are going to be forced to do this, then they should only have to be forced to allow a percentage of their network be used for data roaming and what areas can be worked out between them and the smaller carriers. If the smaller carriers want a further increase in coverage, then they need to invest in their own network growth just like that larger carriers did.

What possible incentive do small carriers have to spend money to build up their own networks if they can just leach of the large carriers free of charge?

The purpose of roaming agreements is to benefit TWO parties, the small carrier gets to increase their coverage area by roaming on the large network, and the large network get to expand their coverage area by roaming on the small networks. In addition, both carriers get the licensing fees for using the other carrier's towers.

Mandating one sided roaming agreements help one company while unfairly punishing the other company.

This is just plain BAD BUSINESS which seriously harms everyone who is a customer of at&t or Verizon.