How Many National Carriers Remain?

With Echostar/Dish's exit from the wireless network business are there only three remaining national carriers.  We explore that topic using Spektrum Metrics Spectrum Database.  With an assist from Excel we are able to determine the number counties licensed to each carrier.  From this analysis we determine that there are 794 unique carriers that hold spectrum licenses.  251 of those carriers only control licenses for one county.

To evaluate left side of the chart, we have include our Carrier Codes for each of the licenses to understand whether these would be full network operators or owners of unique spectrum bands.   There appear to be nine carriers with near national footprints.  There are 3,239 county markets including the Gulf of Mexico, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Mariana Islands.

Observations:

• The FCC has nationwide spectrum through its current control of the upper C-band spectrum
• Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are all represented with "nationwide" spectrum
• CBRS General Authorized Access is represented due the four GAA channels dedicated in each market
• SpaceX is represented by the spectrum they lease from T-Mobile and are purchasing from Dish
• Dish still retains their CBRS which is nearly nationwide
• Grain is primarily represented on this list for the 800MHz/SMR spectrum that is being sold to SpaceX.
• SirriusXM is represented with the WCS guard band spectrum that they lease from AT&T

 The below 1000 county range a few of the more regional operators and spectrum investors.

The next step in this analysis would be to see each of the national footprints from these carriers in the Web Spectrum Viewer.

Below is the Nationwide Map for Next Link Wireless (NLW)

Mobile Carrier Bands - All Band Classification:

Mobile Carrier Bands - Upper Mid Band Classification:

Mobile Carrier Bands - CBRS Frequencies: