T-Mobile's Magenta Herring

[Commentary] The ever colorful tweets from T-Mobile CEO John Legere made for interesting reading after his DC tour in support of T-Mobile’s quest to expand the 600 MHz spectrum reserve. T-Mobile has long alleged that an expanded reserve is essential to competition in rural America. But, the fact is that the reserve framework will have very little impact on wireless service or deployment in rural America. In many rural areas, AT&T’s low-band portfolio is simply not sufficient to trigger the auction restrictions so our bidding in most rural areas will not be restricted, regardless of the size of the reserve. What the restrictions are actually designed to do is protect T-Mobile from bidding competition in urban markets - even though T-Mobile itself argues that 92 percent of non-rural Americans have access to four or more mobile broadband providers. Only 40 percent of rural Americans, T-Mobile argues, enjoy the same and thus T-Mobile tries to build a case for expanding the restrictions to support deployment in rural America.

T-Mobile is misleading policymakers when it advocates for a bigger spectrum set aside in the name of rural competition. Instead of falling for that magenta herring, policymakers should be inviting all bidders to compete for rural licenses that come with stringent build requirements. That would ensure that the spectrum goes to the bidders most likely to make the capital commitments necessary to deploy rural services. That approach would be a far better and more direct way of encouraging broadband deployment in rural America.