AT&T filing provides interesting industry data

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. Below are some of those insights:
–AT&T Mobility claims the deepest penetration of smartphones in the domestic market, with an independent analyst firm stating “AT&T has approximately 31 million smartphone users.”
–At the end of last year 61% of AT&T Mobility’s 68 million contract subscribers had “integrated devices,” an increase from the 46.8% at the end of 2009. Integrated devices accounted for more than 80% of AT&T Mobility’s device sales in connection with contract plans during the fourth quarter of 2010.
–AT&T Mobility has seen an 8,000% increase in data traffic between 2007 and 2010, which coincides with the launch of Apple Inc.’s iPhone device exclusively on AT&T Mobility’s network. Perhaps having that device available on multiple networks could have cut down on that dramatic data traffic growth.
–AT&T Mobility has invested $21.1 billion in capital expenditures to upgrade its wireless network between 2008 and 2010.
–AT&T Mobility claims to lack enough specturm to launch UMTS in some markets.
–AT&T Mobility claims the acquisition of T-Mobile USA will enable the “combined company to eliminate redundant control channels and promptly free up 4.8 to 10 megahertz of extra spectrum, depending on the market.
–AT&T Mobility claims channel pooling for GSM services will increase capacity by as much as 15% in some areas.
–AT&T Mobility apparently does not consider the current incarnation of T-Mobile USA to be a real competitor, and instead points to smaller rivals like MetroPCS Communications Inc., U.S. Cellular Corp., Leap Wireless International Inc., Cellular South Inc. and Cincinnati Bell Wireless, who combined have about 60% of T-Mobile USA’s customer base.
“T-Mobile USA’s absence from the marketplace will not have a significant competitive impact, particularly vis-