AT&T Mobility looks to bolster 700 MHz assets

AT&T Mobility (T) is looking to further expand its spectrum holdings in the 700 MHz band, having filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission to purchase lower 700 MHz B-Block and C-Block licenses from Whidbey Telephone Co.
Financial terms of the proposed deal were not released.
Whidbey scored a half-dozen 12 megahertz B-Block licenses for nearly $5.5 million during the FCC’s 2008 700 MHz auction. Those licenses covered portions of Washington and Idaho.
AT&T Mobility said in its filing that it planned to use the assets to augment capacity in the 30 counties covered by the licenses and would provide the carrier with between 18 megahertz and 55 megahertz of spectrum below 1 GHz bands. Those assets also include the carrier’s holdings in the 850 MHz bands that were “auctioned” by the government in the mid-80s.
Late last year AT&T Mobility announced plans to purchase 700 MHz spectrum licenses from Qualcomm Inc. for $1.92 billion. The spectrum, which was used for Qualcomm’s since discontinued FLO TV business, included 12 megahertz of lower 700 MHz D- and E-Block spectrum covering more than 70 million people in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and six megahertz of lower 700 MHz D-Block spectrum covering more than 230 million people across the rest of the country.
AT&T Mobility spent $2.5 billion in early 2008 to acquire 12 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band from Aloha Partner L.P. covering 72 of the top 100 and all of the top 10 markets in the United States.
AT&T Mobility was the second-largest winner in the FCC’s 700 MHz auction, scooping up a near nationwide chunk of 12 megahertz, B-Block licenses worth a total of $6.6 billion.