A bird’s-eye view of T-Mobile’s new spectrum trove

AT&T is in the process of handing over T-Mobile’s consolation prize, which includes a grab bag of airwaves T-Mobile will use to bulk up its 4G network.

AT&T’s official transfer application popped up on the Federal Communications Commission website, revealing for the first time the specific licenses T-Mobile would gain. For those of you who don’t want to dig through the arcane documentation, GigaOM reader and spectrum policy wonk Andrew Shepherd has prepared a map that shows exactly where T-Mobile picks up new airwaves and how much. T-Mobile didn’t get new spectrum nationwide but it certainly got some valuable licenses in key cities. What’s more, Shepherd found that AT&T had fork over all of its AWS holdings in some pretty valuable markets, including 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. While those losses must sting AT&T, the operator was very careful about which markets it chose to relinquish.