AT&T Expands 3.45 GHz Spectrum Through Soniqwave Acquisition
Soniqwave's journey from owning a few 2.5 GHz licenses to holding a significant amount of 3.45 GHz spectrum culminated yesterday with the announcement in the FCC Daily Digest of AT&T's acquisition of those 3.45 GHz licenses. Their strategy involved initially purchasing individual EBS licenses and later trading a substantial portfolio with T-Mobile.
Spektrum Metrics keeps its subscribers informed about FCC spectrum transaction filings via a weekly email. These details are later archived on our Spectrum Transactions Blog (with a two-month lag), but the summary covering this week's transactions, including the Soniqwave acquisition, has already been distributed without the lag.
The Soniqwave transaction adds to the markets where AT&T is requesting a waiver to allow ownership of more that 40 MHz of 3.45 GHz spectrum. Below is map of what AT&T currently owns in the 3.45 GHz band indicating that they are at the FCC 40 MHz threshold in every market.
AT&T 3.45 GHz Current Ownership:
AT&T has already filed to acquire US Cellular's 3.45 GHz spectrum which is reflected in our future view of AT&T's spectrum. As a reminder, Spektrum Metrics analysis tools provide three different analytical views of spectrum ownership for our subscribers. The Licensed view which shows the spectrum owner, the Current view which shows the effect of spectrum leases, and the Future view which shows the effect of accepted applications.
AT&T 3.45 GHz Future Ownership with US Cellular:
Soniqwave 3.45 GHz Current Ownership:
To evaluate whether the Soniqwave transaction will overlap any of the US Cellular markets we will utilize the Spectrum Depth - PEA Analysis from our Web Spectrum Viewer to see the Soniqwave markets and AT&T's future holdings (including US Cellular) in those markets. It appears that approving AT&T's acquisition of Soniqwave's 3.45 GHz spectrum should be easier than approving AT&T's acquisition of USCellular's 3.45 GHz spectrum since Soniqwave only adds 20 MHz while US Cellular adds 20 MHz at a minimum and 40 MHz at a maximum. Fortunately the Soniqwave and USCellular 3.45 GHz markets do not overlap.
