Cellular South says Verizon Wireless’ rural LTE program is something of a double-sided olive branch: Equipment available through the program isn’t compatible with other portions of the 700 MHz spectrum, and the program itself mainly serves to fill Verizon’s coverage gaps.

While that may be true, is that such a bad thing? Cellular South and the Rural Cellular Association (RCA) seem to think so.

They argue that participation in the program further diminishes the already limited scale of equipment for lower A Block (Band Class 12) LTE deployments because equipment purchased through Verizon’s program will be incompatible with lower A Block spectrum holdings.

To hear them say it, participating in the program will only dig rural carriers in deeper, putting them at the mercy of the size, scale and financial resources of the country’s Tier 1 operators. After all, rural carriers are already having trouble attracting equipment vendors to Band Class 12 and have to pay “unnecessarily inflated costs” for what equipment is available. To top it off, AT&T and Verizon continue to resist automatic data roaming, which would make it easier for rural operators to offer mobile broadband service to their customers.

The RCA says its members are in a tight spot when it comes to next-generation wireless services. They can pay inflated prices for equipment to deploy their own LTE networks – which, by the way, won’t necessarily be interoperable with 4G services from AT&T and Verizon – or they can participate in Verizon’s program and worsen the situation for other rural carriers.

This black-and-white vision isn’t shared by Verizon, which touts the program as being a somewhat altruistic way to get 4G to rural communities, and isn’t shared by all of the RCA’s members.

Bluegrass Cellular has signed up for the program and will lease Verizon’s upper C Block wireless spectrum in service areas where Verizon hasn’t built its network. Bluegrass Cellular holds 700 MHz spectrum in the lower C Block and the lower B Block, so it could deploy LTE on its own merits, but it has chosen to take up Verizon’s offer.

It’s no wonder Bluegrass Cellular is doing so. It will be able to offer its subscribers LTE roaming on Verizon’s network at a time when neither of the country’s top two operators show any inclination to budge on data roaming agreements.

That promise of nationwide LTE roaming is more than just tantalizing; it’s a trump card. Bluegrass Cellular saw an opportunity and took it, no matter the difficulty of finding well-priced equipment for LTE deployments in less-popular frequency bands, no matter the ongoing tug of war between the country’s top two operators and the country’s rural carriers.

Verizon may not be playing entirely fair with its rural LTE program, but it still presents an opportunity many rural carriers will have a hard time passing up.