Why a Mandate Won’t Solve the Real Challenges in the Lower 700 MHz Band

AT&T will file reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission in a proceeding launched to explore interoperability challenges in the lower 700 MHz spectrum bands. Amid the noise of the opening round of comments, fundamental facts have emerged that underscore that the proposed elimination of Band 17 would be profoundly poor public policy.

• First, the proposed interoperability mandate sought by some commentators would be pointless. The A Block licensees’ central claim is that they cannot obtain Band 12 devices without a mandate. This claim has now been soundly rebutted. Although the first A Block LTE service was only recently launched, A Block licensees already have access to Band 12 handset, tablet, and hotspot variants of devices first produced for other LTE bands, most significantly, Verizon’s Band 13 LTE devices that fall back to CDMA technologies.
• Second, the comments confirm that an AT&T Band 12 device would be virtually worthless to any A block licensee requiring CDMA fall back. As one A Block licensee candidly noted, a Band 12 mandate “makes no difference to people like us. … If AT&T is forced to go from 17 to 12, they will still have GSM fallback, so that wouldn’t open up the availability of handsets to anybody.”