Offering Sheet for Nationwide Licenses Says WCS band is used for LTE

It has come to the attention of RTG that AT&T is presently attempting to sell part of its vast nationwide spectrum holdings. This is the same AT&T that is continuously telling the FCC and the American public that it desperately needs to takeover T-Mobile and remove it from the competitive marketplace in order to use its spectrum to offer LTE services to more American consumers. An offering sheet, issued by two reputable industry brokers, has recently surfaced which outlines AT&T’s willingness to jointly sell its WCS spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band with Nextwave Wireless. These licenses cover approximately 2.8 billion MHz POPs and include at least 10 MHz of spectrum covering over 80% of the U.S. population with an additional 5 MHz of spectrum covering the remainder of the country. According to the brokers’ offering sheet, this particular spectrum represents “an opportunity to purchase broadband spectrum covering the entire U.S. population” and that the spectrum can be used for “a wide range of applications including…supplemental downlink for mobile services.” The offering sheet also states that the 2.3 GHz Band is “being used for mobile broadband services” and that LTE equipment for the band is available today.

RTG finds it incredible that AT&T is telling the American public and government regulators that it “faces severe capacity constraints and cannot simply wait for the next major auction to resolve them” yet it is willing to jointly-sell 5-10 MHz of nationwide spectrum designed for mobile broadband in a band that supports LTE. This proposed offering is clear and indisputable evidence that AT&T is trying to swallow-up T-Mobile not because it desperately needs the spectrum but wholly because it removes a maverick nationwide competitor that offers similar services for less money. The FCC and the Department of Justice need to take this proposed offering of spectrum by AT&T into consideration when they consider AT&T’s hollow arguments of being “spectrum constrained.”

Click here for more information on the spectrum sale.

About RTG – Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Rural Telecommunications Group, Inc. (RTG) is a trade association representing rural wireless carriers who each serve less than 100,000 subscribers. RTG’s members have joined together to speed delivery of new, efficient and innovative telecommunications technologies to remote and underserved communities. ruraltelecomgroup.org @RTGwireless

# # #