FCC Should Reject AT&T's Proposed Buy of Low-Band Spectrum From Kentucky Network, T-Mobile Says
T-Mobile asked the FCC to reject AT&T’s proposed buy of three lower 700 MHz C-block licenses from East Kentucky Network. T-Mobile said the proposed deal points to a larger trend of AT&T and Verizon buying up low-band spectrum. “The Commission…
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has repeatedly acknowledged the dominance of AT&T and Verizon in the market for mobile wireless broadband and the potential for harm to competition resulting from the concentrated power of these two companies,” T-Mobile said. If the deal is completed, AT&T would hold more than one-third of the low-band spectrum in two Kentucky markets, Huntington-Ashland and Lexington-Fayette, T-Mobile said. Verizon also has more than 36 megahertz of low-band holdings in the markets, the carrier said. “No other competitor holds more than 14 MHz of low-band spectrum, and T-Mobile holds no low-band spectrum in any of the Markets.” T-Mobile noted it has only 41,977 subscribers in the Lexington region, or 4 percent market share, while AT&T owns more than half the market. “T-Mobile needs access to low-band spectrum in order to better compete in that area against AT&T’s commanding market share,” it said. T-Mobile “should stop complaining and start investing in rural America,” Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory, replied in a blog post Tuesday. The purchase gives AT&T spectrum it needs to deploy up to a 10x10 megahertz LTE network in the markets, “which will enable AT&T to offer faster and higher quality services to its rural customers,” Marsh said. “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.”