T-Mobile US will finally turn up airwaves that it bought in 2022
T-Mobile US plans to turn up much of its long-awaited Auction 108 2.5 GHz spectrum in the next few days, in what it says will provide an “immediate boost” in performance for tens of millions of its customers, particularly in rural areas.
T-Mo said that it will be turning up spectrum covering nearly 60 million customers over nearly 300,000 square miles over the next few days, with additional airwave to come online as new towers are built.
“Thanks to years of planning, T-Mobile is ready to put this spectrum to use right now for millions of our customers, delivering game changing Ultra Capacity 5G to more people and increasing speed and performance for others,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile US, in a statement. “This type of execution is exactly why T-Mobile is the new network leader in the U.S., and we continue to give customers the greatest value at the same time.”
T-Mobile US won more than 7,000 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses in 2022’s Federal Communications Commission Auction 108, but it has been a long process to actually get to the point where the carrier can use them.
The Federal Communications Commission’s statutory authority to auction licenses expired in early March 2023. As a result, the FCC stopped all auction-related activity—including processing the transfer of most of the licenses which had already been auctioned and paid for as part of the 2.5 GHz auction, which wrapped up in the fall of 2022. President Joe Biden signed the 5G SALE Act in December 2023, giving temporary authorization to the Federal Communications Commission to process the transfers of 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses so that T-Mo could get its hands on those airwaves. (The FCC’s auction authority has yet to be reinstated by Congress.)
Of the 8,017 licenses available in Auction 108, 98% of them sold and the vast majority of those (7,156, to be exact) were won by T-Mobile US at a cost of about $304 million, to add to its deep existing holdings and leases in the band. That equated to T-Mobile US winning nearly 91% of the available Auction 108 licenses, covering 68% of the U.S. nationwide and about 80 million POPs total. The carrier noted that it won licenses in nearly every county in the U.S. and in particular, highlighted how the new spectrum will bolster its coverage and capacity in Louisiana and Pennsylvania. In Louisiana, T-Mobile US said it will have additional coverage and/or capacity in 92% of counties once it has turned up all of its new 2.5 GHz spectrum; in Pennsylvania, the carrier said that 2.2 million POPs (about 1 million of whom are in rural areas) will see a performance boost.
