The 100 MHz Club: Markets Where AT&T's Low-Band Spectrum Dominates

AT&T's acquisition of Echostar/Dish's 600MHz spectrum provides it with an opportunity to begin to close the 5G coverage/capacity gap with T-Mobile.  For this post we are going to focus our analysis on the  low band spectrum screen.  As a reminder, the FCC spectrum screen analysis typically looks at areas where a carrier exceeds 30% ownership in a band classification (low band, lower mid band, and upper mid band) keying more in-depth competitive analysis.  For additional information on Spectrum Screens visit this previous blog post.  In the chart below we have graphed AT&T's low band spectrum holdings along with the 30% spectrum screen for each of the Top 50 CMA markets.  AT&T's FirstNet spectrum is not included in this analysis due to it not being included in the FCC's spectrum screen definitions.

From this analysis, AT&T clearly exceeds the 30% spectrum screen significantly in at least 8 markets, and exceeds Verizon and T-Mobile's low band holdings in almost all markets.

What are the conditions in the 8 markets that drive AT&T's low band spectrum screen totals over 100 MHz?  In the CMA Market spectrum holdings table below we detail the spectrum that AT&T controls in each of the low band frequencies. Note:  In this table 20 MHz needs to be subtracted from each of the 700MHz values to remove the FirstNet component.  The FirstNet component is not included in the chart values.

There are two common themes to the markets where AT&T exceeds 100MHz.  If they own both blocks of the Cellular spectrum (50 MHz) they are likely to exceed 100MHz and in the New York markets they are also likely to exceed 100MHz because the Dish/EchoStar deal include 40MHz of spectrum.  You can review our previous post to determine AT&T's new 600MHz holdings by market.

In the map below, we highlight the markets where AT&T controls both bands of the Cellular spectrum, although it is concentrated in Texas and Florida.