T-Mobile accuses AT&T of lying about data roaming rates

T-Mobile US and AT&T have been trading shots over the prices AT&T charges for data roaming as part of the government’s investigation into a complaint filed by T-Mobile.

T-Mobile accused AT&T and Verizon Wireless of charging unreasonably high data roaming rates, making it difficult for smaller carriers to offer better deals to consumers. AT&T argued in a filing on November 14 that it “buys more data roaming than it sells both on a megabyte basis and on a dollar basis,” mostly through agreements with rural carriers, and that it pays more than T-Mobile does.

T-Mobile accused AT&T of getting its facts wrong in a filing Nov 21. “AT&T mischaracterizes the facts of its negotiations with T-Mobile and the current status," T-Mobile wrote. "AT&T’s claim that it offered T-Mobile an LTE roaming rate of under $.18/MB is best described as illusory, since it is conditioned in such a way that T-Mobile would rarely, if ever, qualify for the offered rate… In fact, AT&T’s offered rate for LTE is 40 percent higher than the average rate that T-Mobile paid for data roaming across all technologies (including less efficient 2G and 3G technologies) in 2014 when excluding AT&T, and nearly 100 percent higher when considering the latest quarter. This is despite the fact that LTE technology is significantly more efficient than 2G/3G technologies, and that the cost to produce a MB of LTE roaming is therefore lower than for 2G/3G.”