Things have been so noisy and persistent on the Sprint/SoftBank buyout rumor side that any mention of the 700MHz spectrum from Verizon has seemingly gone unnoticed. Earlier than anticipated, T-Mobile’s purchase of the A-block spectrum from VZW has been signed off by the Department of Justice.
“The U.S. Department of Justice brought its antitrust review of T-Mobile US Inc.’s acquisition of Verizon Wireless spectrum licenses to an early close Monday, giving its approval to the $3.3 billion deal just over a month after it was announced.
The DOJ issued a notice that it was terminating its premerger evaluation of the transaction early, signing off on T-Mobile’s purchase of 700-megahertz A-block spectrum licenses from Verizon in exchange for $2.36 billion in cash and spectrum licenses valued at $950 million.”
As we’ve mentioned a couple of times – and stated by company executives – there’s going to be a significant wait until this lower band spectrum is utilized. It’s more than likely we won’t see any activity on these airwaves until the end of this year or beginning of 2015. With the antitrust review having been ended earlier than expected, let’s hope that means better quality signal is coming sooner rather than later.