Historical Spectrum Data - A Look Back to 2012...MetroPCS, SpectrumCo, Clearwire, and Leap Wireless January 20, 2020 14:58

One of the benefits of Allnet Insights' Spectrum Ownership Analysis Tools, is the repository of monthly releases that we have accumulated. With the USA Mobile Carrier Tool we have monthly versions going back to July 2012.  Each of our historical tools details spectrum ownership and the variety of spectrum depth analysis modules that were supported at that time.  

I thought it would be interesting to look back at the spectrum ownership landscape from July 2012.  Looking first at our Spectrum Grid for low band spectrum, you can see that Verizon still holds the 700MHz B block licenses that were sold later to AT&T.  In addition, Verizon also holds the 700MHz A block licenses that were sold to T-Mobile.  

Looking next at the lower mid band spectrum, former licensees like SpectrumCo, Leap Wireless, and MetroPCS still control blocks of AWS-1 and PCS spectrum.  This view of spectrum ownership also allows you to see how Verizon consolidated their AWS-1 spectrum holdings with SpectrumCo's holdings into a 20 MHz block through spectrum license trades with T-Mobile and their MetroPCS licenses.  Today Verizon controls the lower 20 MHz of the AWS-1 band and T-Mobile controls the upper 25 MHz in the New York / New Jersey counties.

Looking at the upper mid band spectrum we first see all of the original WCS spectrum licensees:  Horizon Wi-Com, Nextwave, Sprint, Comcast, and San Diego Gas & Electric.  Clearwire also appears in the upper mid band Spectrum Grid with their 2.5GHz spectrum holdings.

It is interesting then to look at our County Analysis module to see the detail on each carrier's spectrum depth.  It is noteworthy to mention that Verizon has 119 MHz of spectrum in most of the New York / New Jersey counties with AT&T trailing with 91 MHz of spectrum.  Verizon still sits with rough the same amount of spectrum although they replaced all of the 700MHz spectrum they sold to AT&T and T-Mobile with SpectrumCo spectrum and AWS-3 spectrum while AT&T has growth while AT&T has grown their spectrum depth in the same counties to 161 MHz.