T-Mobile, AT&T Fight on Any Mid-Band Spectrum Screen

T-Mobile Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Kathleen Ham slammed AT&T Tuesday during a Media Institute webinar after the rival asked the FCC to adopt a spectrum screen for 2.5 GHz-6 GHz (see 2109010069). AT&T fired back. “What an about face,” Ham said: “For AT&T now to be endorsing a screen is really a complete 180” degrees. AT&T fought “very hard and very mightily” against low-band aggregation limits sought by T-Mobile, she said. “Competition is indeed working.” AT&T “is feeling the heat, they’re realizing that T-Mobile is the leader in 5G right now and we’re pushing them,” she said. AT&T wants regulation to “help them out, to basically protect them from competition,” she said. A screen is “supposed to be pro-competitive, not anticompetitive,” Ham said. T-Mobile will have more to say in filings, she said. “Mid-band spectrum plays a critical role in the buildout of 5G networks,” an AT&T spokesperson emailed. “Its value should be reflected in a separate screen -- as is low-band and high-band spectrum -- when determining whether a proposed transaction would harm the competitive landscape. Our proposed screen would not prevent any carrier from acquiring more spectrum as needed to meet demand. Rather, it would level the playing field.” T-Mobile “doesn’t sit on a megahertz, we build it out,” Ham said. T-Mobile wants the FCC to enforce buildout requirements, recognizing that every band is different, she said. T-Mobile led the industry in clearing AWS spectrum of government users “because we had to” and needed the spectrum for 3G, she said. T-Mobile hopes for a 2.5 GHz auction in Q1 or Q2, she said. “It’s time for the remaining spectrum to be auctioned.” Other 3 GHz spectrum is the most likely to be examined next for auction “and then other bands to be determined,” she said. Ham said there are “very positive signals” that Congress will approve federal infrastructure legislation. T-Mobile likes the commitment to “affordability,” she said: “We’re very active participants in the current emergency broadband benefit program, which is really continued as part of that legislation.” She added to T-Mobile’s Washington, D.C., office, but staffers have been unable to gather in one location since the start of this pandemic. “We’ve had some great webcasts and we do get together online on a regular basis,” Ham said: “That’s been a challenge.” T-Mobile is requiring all employees be vaccinated by Oct. 25, which should mean more in-person work, she said. T-Mobile is offering in-home broadband in markets where it has excess capacity on top of its mobile network, Ham said. “We’re finding, particularly in rural areas and smaller towns … there’s a real hunger for this,” she said: Plans are to expand the program to 7 million-8 million customers by 2025.