AT&T: 700 MHz interoperability proposal unnecessary, unprecedented

AT&T struck back at 700 MHz A-Block licensees that are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that AT&T use Band 12, rather than Band 17, to provide LTE services using 700 MHz spectrum.

Making such a regulatory change would be "an unprecedented intervention in the marketplace," said Joan Marsh, vice president of federal regulatory for AT&T, in an Aug. 16 notice to the FCC detailing her Aug. 13 ex parte meeting with Courtney Reinhard, legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. Such a move, argued Marsh, "would undermine the integrity and predictability of the wireless industry's standards-setting process, retard broadband investment and deployment, threaten the reliability of existing LTE services, expose millions of consumers to additional interference risk and yield none of the 'interoperability' benefits upon which the proposed regulatory mandate is falsely premised."