The agency will continue to permit wireless customers to roam "manually" on other networks by providing a credit card number. The regulations cover voice service, text messaging and "Push-to-Talk," which allows for instant calling, but don't extend to wireless high-speed Internet services, including e-mail and Internet-based phone calls.

Those limitations were a concern to the FCC’s two Democrats, Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, although they hailed the overall item as beneficial.

"Consumers rely on their mobile handsets these days for a dizzying array of data services, going well beyond those that we cover in today's item," Copps complained during an FCC meeting. Added Adelstein, “The public interest would be much better served if we were to consider how to best frame the roaming requirement to include broadband.”

But the agency's three Republicans applauded the light regulatory touch. "Consumers increasingly expect that their mobile phones will function where they work, where they play, and where they travel," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said. "Automatic roaming fulfills these expectations in a manner that is seamless and transparent to the consumer," he added.

While Martin is "sympathetic" to his colleagues' concerns, he warned that extending automatic roaming to broadband data could undermine the plans of some companies to provide wholesale high-speed Internet capacity to wireless carriers.

Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate said the new rules "strike a balance" between safeguarding consumers and allowing market forces to prevail. She also was pleased that the roaming rules don't tamper with the FCC's previous classification of wireless broadband as a moderately regulated information service, rather than a heavily regulated telecom offering.

And Commissioner Robert McDowell said he was encouraged that the regulations do not impose negotiation mandates, set rates, create a new class of carriers or require investigations of roaming practices.

CTIA, the wireless industry's main trade association, which represents large and small carriers with divergent views on this subject, had no comment.

"We thank the commission for taking this long-awaited step in requiring automatic roaming," said Joe Davis, spokesman for the Alliance for Fair Roaming Access, in a statement. "Until we have the opportunity to review the text of today's order, we don't know what additional steps, if any, will be required to ensure that consumers fully realize that promise," he added.

The alliance is made up of several rural carriers and associations representing such companies including the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Organization for Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, and Rural Telecommunications Group.