T-Mobile needs more low-band spectrum to continue to...
T-Mobile needs more low-band spectrum to continue to play the disruptive role the carrier is now playing in the U.S. wireless market, T-Mobile said in a filing at the FCC. T-Mobile executives met with aides to the five commissioners, as…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
well as Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman, the carrier said in an ex parte filing. “Access to low-band spectrum and the economies of scale that greater access would enable represent two of the most pressing needs T-Mobile must satisfy if the company is to continue to play as disruptive a role in the market for the benefit of consumers as it has played over the last two years,” T-Mobile said. “Numerous studies … have demonstrated that low-band spectrum experiences significantly less path loss over wide areas than higher-frequency spectrum and less penetration loss when traveling through building walls, yielding improved consistency and reliability of coverage over wide-areas and indoors.” Meanwhile, T-Mobile Vice President Kathleen Ham responded Tuesday to comments by a second carrier official on why low-band spectrum is not a substitute for a denser network (CD May 6 p3). “On the one hand, they're arguing low-band doesn’t matter, but on the other they say that it does,” Ham told us. “If it doesn’t matter, go at it and bid in the AWS-3 auction. Get as much spectrum there as you want. Go for it.” Ham jabbed at AT&T in particular, which has been in a long-standing conflict with T-Mobile over spectrum aggregation rules. “It’s great for them to speak about how low-band is no big deal when they control so much of it,” she said.