America’s fourth largest operator T-Mobile US has agreed a US$308m transaction with regional carrier US Cellular to acquire AWS licences. It has bought 10MHz of spectrum which it can use for 4G that covers 32 million people across the Mississippi…
America’s fourth largest operator T-Mobile US has agreed a US$308m transaction with regional carrier US Cellular to acquire AWS licences.
It has bought 10MHz of spectrum which it can use for 4G that covers 32 million people across the Mississippi Valley region covering markets such as Kansas City, New Orleans and St Louis.
German-owned T-Mobile recently completed its merger with MetroPCS and the merged company’s CEO John Legere said it was a good opportunity to expand its footprint.
“In today’s marketplace, spectrum is gold,” he said.
T-Mobile expects to close the transaction, which requires approval from the FCC and Department of Justice, in Q4.
In spite of its merger with MetroPCS the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary still trails number three operator Sprint Nextel in terms of subscribers. Sprint, which is close to completing its sale to Japanese telco Softbank, looks set to acquire a considerable amount of airwaves as it is in pole position to take over spectrum-rich Clearwire Corporation.
Today’s deal is US Cellular’s second disposal of spectrum in recent times. In May it completed a US$480m sale to Sprint – it sold 10MHz and 20MHz blocks in the 1900MHz band, and 420,000 subscribers affiliated whose services ran off the frequencies.
