AT&T Urges FCC Not to Grant T-Mobile 2.5 GHz Licenses Won in Auction
AT&T protested granting T-Mobile additional mid-band licenses in the 2.5 GHz band because of the carrier’s already huge position in the band. T-Mobile dominated the recent auction, winning 7,156 licenses for $304.3 million, about 90% of the available spectrum (see…
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2209010060). AT&T filed the protest earlier this week in the FCC’s universal licensing system, asking the agency to reject T-Mobile’s long-form application for the licenses. “T-Mobile already far exceeds the Commission’s spectrum screen in many areas and holds far more spectrum than even T-Mobile thinks it needs,” AT&T said: “Its spectrum holdings are particularly disproportionate in the mid-band frequencies that the Commission has deemed ‘critical’ to any provider’s ‘5G buildout due to its desirable coverage, capacity, and propagation characteristics.’” T-Mobile’s extensive holdings “threaten long-term competition for mobile broadband services, as T-Mobile openly acknowledges in its investor presentations,” AT&T said. Commission orders have “reflected too little attention to T-Mobile’s acknowledged plan to dominate mid-band spectrum to the detriment of competition,” AT&T charged. T-Mobile “was permitted to acquire spectrum-rich Sprint in 2019 and exceed the spectrum screen in hundreds of localities, all without any spectrum divestitures or even a market-by-market analysis of the potential harm to competition,” AT&T said: “Since the merger, T-Mobile has acquired substantial C-Band and 3.45 GHz assets even as it told investors that it did not need that new mid-band spectrum to compete, and it completed those purchases, too, without effective regulatory scrutiny.” The FCC also “rejected proposals by AT&T and others to open the 2.5 GHz band to genuine bidding competition, opting instead for T-Mobile’s preferred approach,” the filing said. T-Mobile didn't comment.