Today, T-Mobile filed a petition to deny a spectrum acquisition by AT&T in three rural cellular market areas (CMAs) in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. The purchase will give AT&T the needed spectrum footprint to deploy up to a 10×10 MHz LTE network in these markets, which will enable AT&T to offer faster and higher quality services to its rural customers. The proposed transaction also has no adverse competitive effects. AT&T will not exceed the Commission’s spectrum aggregation screen and — because the spectrum at issue currently sits completely fallow and unused – the deal will not reduce any actual competition.
Yet, T-Mobile complains, arguing that AT&T should not be permitted to buy and deploy this fallow spectrum and that AT&T should not be allowed to invest in these rural communities to deploy high quality LTE services.
T-Mobile’s disdain for rural investment has long been evident. Looking at T-Mobile’s current and proposed coverage maps, it’s readily apparent that T-Mobile offers very little coverage in these markets today. Moreover, even as it purportedly expands to cover 300M POPs by the end of 2015, T-Mobile has only limited plans to invest in the rural markets covered by these licenses, particularly those in West Virginia. T-Mobile also has 20-30 MHz of AWS spectrum in all of these markets that it could use to serve these rural communities if it chose. Finally, if T-Mobile wants low band spectrum for these markets, it could buy the 700 MHz A block spectrum (which is largely undeployed in these markets) and deploy it – a path it is following for many other markets.
Yet, T-Mobile chooses to do none of these. Instead it is spending resources on trying to block AT&T from investing in rural America. I guess un-investment in un-urban markets is the un-carrier thing to do.
Feeling down ATT? Is T-Mobile rustling your jimmies? Instead of whining on your public policy website, you should be getting competitive with T-Mobile, trying to price match them and beat their next uncarrier move. Stop whining ATT. I like you guys, but you need to compete
Nice whining session AT&T, unfortuanately, unlike never before in your history, you must now deal with actual competition. I know it seems scary, but you will just have to deal with it.
Well, AT&T already has 10X10 of 700MHz C Block in that market, so why don’t you deploy your own low band spectrum. In addition you filed a petition to use the A block spectrum that T-Mobile uses. T-Mobile has added customers while you have lost them over the past 8 quarters. I suggest you stop pointing fingers and actually compete. Try a new marketing department if you want to have snarky faux business decisions.
Hi Joan,
I think you should take some time to read some feedback by former AT&T customers regarding the tone of this article. The word “childish” comes up a lot. I hope you don’t censor this criticism, that would be un-fair.
Is this a joke? Is AT&T really doing this?
Stop crying for your mommy, ATT. Get your stuff together and stop complaining on T-Mobile’s innovation.
Look somewhere else for support AT&T, instead of crying on blog posts get back to work and figure out a way to be competitive.
After years of ripping people off and ignoring the concerns of your customers, this is well deserved.
It’s a bit unfair to criticize T-Mobile for their poor rural footprint. If they tried to use the spectrum they currently own (minus the band 12 acquisition) on rural coverage it would be a huge waste of money.
You kind of admitted WHY T-Mobile needs it more than you in this article.
Well, this smacks of desperation. Why don’t we talk about AT&T’s repeated touting of metrics like ‘strongest LTE signal in the United States’ – note, not fastest, not most reliable, not ‘most’ anything that’s a measurable, useful metric. Let’s talk about your lack of backhaul infrastructure to support all of those LTE devices. Let’s talk about the poor voice reliability and performance in major markets. But the last thing any of us want to hear you talk about is T-Mobile.
Extremely sad, but unfortunately not surprising in the least.
T-Mobile should stop complaining to the FCC and invest in spectrum and build-out their network like AT&T & Verizon.
The fact that all the comments before me are telling ATT to stop whining and step it up says it all.
I feel that the comments on this blog post perfectly summarize the true issue, so I won’t get into specs about the types of spectrum. Instead, I’d like to admire Tmobile for all of the great work they’ve done since John Legere was appointed. They’ve fight an uphill battle, and I hope that ATT will match Tmobile’s promotions and constant announcements of new features for customers. Your greed is showing and customers know when they’re priority to a company and when they’re not.