How AT&T can create a fat nationwide 4G pipe to match Verizon’s

AT&T’s LTE rollout plans are a bit of a hodgepodge. The problem is spectrum. It never managed to piece together the licenses to form a consistent nationwide 4G band like that owned by archrival Verizon. Instead AT&T cobbled together 700 MHz licenses here and Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) licenses there. The result is a network that already has some big capacity shortfalls in key markets and could eventually have gaps in coverage.

But AT&T is trying to rectify that situation by tapping spectrum in the most unexpected places. AT&T announced its intentions to buy spectrum squatter NextWave and its big hunk of Wireless Communications Services (WCS) spectrum. Shortly afterward it filed notice with the FCC that it plans to pick up smaller WCS holdings from Comcast and Horizon Wi-Com. UBS Investment Research analyst John Hodulik believes AT&T is now approaching Sprint, which is the last remaining WCS licensee of note. Hodulik said in a research note that those deals will give AT&T almost exclusive ownership of the WCS band, which ultimately would allow it to deploy a 20 MHz LTE network nationwide. Getting all those licenses is key to AT&T’s strategy otherwise WCS will remain useless for mobile broadband services, as it has for the last 15 years. Interference problems with the neighboring satellite radio services have made the band a no-man’s land for terrestrial cellular technologies. But a compromise between Sirius XM Radio and AT&T would solve the problem.