• MOST READ

• LATEST NEWS

Amid the wreckage of AT&T's and LightSquared's 4G spectrum plans, all the US players are rethinking their options. As LightSquared hits out at the FCC's block, fellow 4G wholesaler Clearwire has inevitably seen its star rise, but supporters will still have to wait a year until it turns on LTE services. Meanwhile, AT&T is reportedly eyeing just about all the fallback options after the bar on its proposed takeover of T-Mobile USA, with Leap and MetroPCS joining Dish Network in the frame.

According to The Wall Street Journal, AT&T is in active discussions with the three operators, though no deal is yet on the table. The larger firm is still on the hunt for spectrum - not only did it justify the TMo bid by arguing it would run out of capacity around mid-decade, but it now has to give T-Mobile its AWS licences in 128 markets - including 12 of the top 20 - as part of its break-up fee.

The WSJ's sources believe that Leap is the most likely candidate for AT&T, especially as the two firms held negotiations last year when the larger firm was trying to save its TMo deal, and was suggesting sweetening the pill for regulators by offloading some spectrum to smaller players. Leap, as a regional player, is probably small enough to get past antitrust regulators and would bring AT&T complementary AWS spectrum, though it would also come with a legacy CDMA network and a low margin prepaid base. The same balance of advantage would apply to the other flat rate regional player, MetroPCS, though this carrier would also bring an advanced - if low capacity - LTE network. The two firms have a roaming deal which gives them near-national coverage in CDMA, though this may not be extended to LTE.

Dish is the most complicated option as it still has to get FCC approval to build an LTE network in its mobile satellite spectrum, and AT&T would end up with several bands to support. Dish insists its wants to build out an LTE-Advanced network of its own rather than sell its spectrum, but the two companies could potentially come to a sharing or leasing deal.

Philip Falcone, head of LightSquared's main backer Harbinger Capital, is looking around for his own fallback options, with the likelihood of the LTE venture getting the go-ahead now looking almost non-existent. Falcone is reported to be looking to swap LightSquared's spectrum with frequencies owned by the US Department of Defense in an effort to rescue his investment and therefore his hedge fund, which has put $3bn into the mobile broadband wholesale venture. The back-up plan would be to sell the LightSquared spectrum, said Bloomberg. Brian Miller, an analyst at Bloomberg Research, says the spectrum is now worth about $500m, the book value that its former owner SkyTerra Communications placed on it when it was satellite-only.

The FCC's decision "was not a decision based on science or technology, but was a politically motivated decision fueled by special interest groups in the GPS and telecom industry," Falcone said in a statement. "There are solutions to this problem that can and will address the needs of the GPS community."

Pages: 1 | 2

Related Stories

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first to add a comment!

Carrier Broadband Performance: Africa & Middle East
Carriers are using mobile broadband as their weapon of choice in the fight against the commoditization of voice and falling ARPU. This...

Voice over LTE: Market Analysis and Forecasts
VoLTE offer unique advantages in lowering a carrier's voice infrastructure economics and promises to improve voice quality, device...