Verizon Wireless is making good on its promise to start selling off some of its “excess” 700 MHz spectrum licenses, announcing today that it will sell its Texas RSA 6-Jack 700 MHz lower B-Block license to Nortex Communications for an undisclosed sum. Verizon Wireless first offered to put its A- and B-Block 700 MHz licenses on the block last spring, making the sale conditional on the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of its bid to buy 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum licenses from SpectrumCo, a consortium formed by a handful of cable companies. The FCC subsequently approved that deal despite significant opposition from competing carriers, and now Verizon Wireless says it’s following through with its part of the bargain.
Although this is the first deal to be signed as part of Verizon Wireless’ announced sale process, the company says it has already sold 24 of its 700 MHz licenses. Finding buyers for the remaining licenses should not be hard as carriers struggle to find enough bandwidth to support next-generation services. However, the 700 MHz bands may not be ideal for densely populated urban areas, because their strong propagation characteristics tend to increase interference. There are also concerns, at least for the A-Block, that interference might be an issue from nearby television and E-Block spectrum that is central to AT&T Mobility’s opposition to including the A-Block in its band class.
The licenses Verizon Wireless is selling to Nortex cover a four-county area northwest of Dallas. In addition, Verizon says the licenses cover “dozens of smaller and rural markets across the country.”
Verizon Wireless is relying on the 22 megahertz of C-Block 700 MHz spectrum for broad coverage of its LTE network, with plans to add capacity to that network using its significant 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum assets.
Follow me on Twitter.
