AT&T Inc. (T) late last week filed its petition to acquire T-Mobile USA Inc. with the Federal Communications Commission. The detailed document, excluding the lack of detail from redacted information, lays out AT&T’s argument as to why the FCC should allow the nation’s No. 2 operator to acquire the No. 4 operator and thus form a new No. 1 carrier.
While AT&T has already noted many of those arguments, mainly spectrum constraints, details provided in the document provide addition insight into both AT&T’s plans as well as interesting, though perhaps slanted, insight into the current wireless market. Earlier this week we provided some of those insights. Today we add a few more:
–AT&T makes a comment that T-Mobile USA is currently using its AWS specturm for “less efficient” HSPA+ technology, a technology AT&T Mobility is using its PCS spectrum for.
(Wonder if using PCS spectrum for a less efficient technology is better than using AWS spectrum? Also, AT&T Mobility is currently sitting on a cache of AWS spectrum that it eventually plans to use to support LTE services.)
–AT&T Mobility’s plans to free up T-Mobile USA’s AWS spectrum will require it to provide new devices to all of those current T-Mobile USA customers so they can use AT&T Mobility’s HSPA+ services.
–AT&T notes that T-Mobile USA currently does not have “clear path” to providing LTE services as it lacks the current specturm depth to launch those services.
(That argument seems to not take into account a possible agreement with LightSquared that would allow T-Mobile USA to offer LTE through a wholesale agreement or a possible deal with Clearwire Corp., which had been rumored prior to AT&T’s acquisition announcement.)
–AT&T notes the deal will help its customer care efforts as it “expects that its customers will benefit from T-Mobile USA’s industry-leading customer care practices.”
(Recent surveys have shown AT&T Mobility’s customer care services ranked near the bottom among its competitors.)
–AT&T notes that due to siting obstacles, it was not able to deploy as many cell sites in 2010 as it had budgeted for.
–AT&T does not expect to have commercial access to the 700 MHz spectrum it’s in the process of acquiring from Qualcomm Inc. until 2014.
–AT&T claims that leasing spectrum from LightSquared or Clearwire will not help mitigate capacity issues as the handsets currently used by its customer base will not work with those networks.
(That issues does not seem to be stopping other carriers from selecting the wholesale option.)
–AT&T is looking to use T-Mobile USA’s PCS spectrum to help alleviate current capacity issues, while at the same time it will be looking to move all of T-Mobile USA’s current data-hungry HSPA+ customers from its AWS spectrum band to the PCS band in order to free up the AWS spectrum for LTE. The move of those T-Mobile HSPA+ customers will require new handsets, while the future move to LTE services using the AWS and 700 MHz spectrum will then require a new handset.
–While AT&T touts the capacity and coverage gains it will enjoy from acquiring T-Mobile USA, it also notes that some of the cost savings it expects from the deal will come from the decommissioning of cell sites. AT&T does note that by removing equipment from some towers it will free up space for other operators.
–AT&T states that without the T-Mobile USA acquisition its LTE footprint would only cover 80% of the U.S. population, lining up with its plans to cover 250 million potential customers by the end of 2013.
(That would also seem to indicate that the carrier has no plans to ever reuse its 850 MHz or 1.9 GHz spectrum holding to deploy LTE.)
–The addition of T-Mobile USA will allow AT&T to expand LTE coverage to an additional 1 million square miles of land mass.
–Citing a study, AT&T notes that $11.6 billion was invested in 3G and satellite technologies between 2003 and 2009, corresponding to the creation of 168,300 jobs.
–AT&T states the acquisition will allow current T-Mobile USA employees to join unions currently operating at AT&T.
Check back later this week for more.
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