[johnnygood]

There are two things here: business and technology.

AT&T and Verizon are both using "700MHz" spectrum. However, Verizon is using the upper-700MHz band and AT&T is using the lower 700MHz band. It is possible (clearly) to support multiple frequency bands, but it isn't free. Plus, AT&T is shipping 700/AWS devices. While Verizon has AWS spectrum, their current crop of devices are 700-only. So, it would mean AT&T supporting three bands 700L, 700U, and AWS.

Beyond that, carriers generally don't do roaming where they have service already. AT&T already has data service everywhere Verizon has LTE. It's slower data service, but it's still service. Voice works the same way. A company might have very low signal in an area, but as long as the phone can get any signal, it will prefer its home carrier. If they had the same policy with LTE, it wouldn't help customers. Heck, Sprint users are allowed to roam onto Verizon for data, but are restricted to 1xRTT (2G) when roaming on Verizon (save for legacy Alltel areas). It might be that Verizon's data roaming rates are so high for newer technologies that it would be unreasonable to offer roaming like that.