With AT&T’s official transfer application now on the Federal Communications Website, we can finally discover which specific licenses T-Mobile will gain. Thanks to the folks at GigaOM who prepared this pretty pink map with a city by city breakdown of areas T-Mobile will gain new airwaves.
T-Mobile didn’t receive nationwide spectrum but it did receive valuable spectrum in some key cities. Furthermore, AT&T had to fork over all of its AWS holdings in Boston; San Francisco/Oakland; Washington, D.C.; Houston; Baltimore; Atlanta; San Diego; Seattle; Kansas City, Mo.; San Jose, Calif.; San Antonio; and Salt Lake City. In reality, AT&T only gave up AWS spectrum it had enough 700Mhz spectrum to fulfill the buildout of a LTE network. In markets like Chicago, AT&T wouldn’t part with any of its AWS licenses, even so it had other spectrum to fall back on.
In the end, T-Mobile made out well in some of the nations most important cities, allowing for holdings between 60 and 80 MHz of combined AWS, PCS airwaves in many of the markets included in the transaction. These holdings will allow T-Mobile to expand its HSPA+ network in some areas and add more 4G capacity in others.
Want the FCC breakdown city by city? Hit the links below and remember, this list isn’t complete: