Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US have agreed a USD173 million deal to transfer a tranche of AWS-1 and PCSspectrum licences between them in various markets across the country. According to Fierce Wireless, the deal – which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2015 – includes spectrum swaps in parts of Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia.
A public interest statement submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) notes: ‘These assignments involve only the transfer of spectrum; no network or other assets or customers are involved. The assignments are, in all markets, intra-market licence exchanges that will enable more efficient operations resulting from larger blocks of contiguous spectrum and/or the alignment of spectrum blocks held in adjacent markets. All of these intra-market exchanges involve the exchange of an even amount of spectrum, where neither party will increase its spectrum holdings in the market’.
