T-Mobile Goes on the Attack Against Mobile Future
T-Mobile blasted away at a white paper filed last month at the FCC by Mobile Future, which said economics, not spectrum scarcity, is what has kept carriers like T-Mobile from making bigger investments serving rural America (see 1503170049). The Mobile…
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Future paper was authored by American Rural CEO Diane Smith. “Mobile Future and American Rural falsely represent themselves as populist entities,” T-Mobile said Thursday in a filing in docket 12-268. “They are not. AT&T and Verizon fund Mobile Future’s operations and largely shape its advocacy.” American Rural never before filed in the proceeding and Smith “is also employed by Mobile Future, which, in turn, receives the majority of its financing from AT&T and Verizon,” T-Mobile said. Data released as part of the paper point to the opposite of the conclusions drawn by Mobile Future, T-Mobile said: “The availability of low-band spectrum is central to competition in rural areas because these frequencies largely determine whether, when, how, and where wireless carriers deploy broadband services.” Mobile Future is proud to have among its members the two national carriers serving the most rural subscribers, the group said in response. "With countless analyst reports touting T-Mobile's spectrum holdings and marketplace success, T-Mobile continues to hold much more spectrum per subscriber than any other major player," Mobile Future said. "T-Mobile clearly has one message for Wall Street and another for the FCC. Competition is hard but shooting at the messenger doesn’t change the facts."