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[ NNSquad ] [IP] AT&T Admits That The Whole 'Spectrum Crunch' Argument It Made For Why It Needed T-Mobile Wasn't True



----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> -----

Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 09:21:49 -0500
From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: [IP] AT&T Admits That The Whole 'Spectrum Crunch' Argument It Made
	For Why It Needed T-Mobile Wasn't True
Reply-To: dave@farber.net
To: ip <ip@listbox.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Dewayne Hendricks*
Date: Saturday, November 10, 2012
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] AT&T Admits That The Whole 'Spectrum Crunch'
Argument It Made For Why It Needed T-Mobile Wasn't True
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net@warpspeed.com>


AT&T Admits That The Whole 'Spectrum Crunch' Argument It Made For Why It
Needed T-Mobile Wasn't True
from the well,-implicity dept
By Mike Masnick
Nov 9, 2012
<
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121109/07434820984/att-admits-that-whole-spectrum-crunch-argument-it-made-why-it-needed-t-mobile-wasnt-true.shtml
>

You may recall that back when AT&T was trying to buy T-Mobile, a big part
of the argument was a spectrum crunch around its wireless efforts. The
company insisted -- strenuously -- that it would not be able to expand 4G
LTE services to more than 80% of the population unless it had T-Mobile.
That argument ran into some trouble when a lawyer accidentally posted some
documents to the FCC which admitted that the company could fairly easily
expand its coverage to 97% of the population of the US without T-Mobile
(and, in fact, that it would cost about 10% of what buying T-Mobile would
cost). Suddenly, the argument that it absolutely needed T-Mobile rang
hollow -- even as the company continued to insist exactly that. Still, the
FCC suddenly wasskeptical and AT&T, seeing the writing on the wall, gave up
on the merger.

So, it probably shouldn't have been seen as much of a surprise that just 11
months after the T-Mobile deal fell through, AT&T has announced plans to
expand its LTE footprint to cover 97% of the population of the US. In other
words, the internal document was exactly correct, and AT&T's public claims?
Hogwash.

Even the mainstream news media is now mocking AT&T's obviously bogus claims
during the merger fight. AT&T's response to this is to claim that it
"chartered a new direction," doing something like 40 new deals for
spectrum. However, as Broadband Reports notes, all of this seems to make
clear that there is no spectrum crunch -- that's just a bogeyman story that
the telcos tell the government when they want a handout. In fact, AT&T is
now saying publicly that there is no spectrum crunch. It has more than
enough.

[snip]

Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>


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----- End forwarded message -----

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren 
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Founder:
 - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org 
 - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
 - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
 - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren 
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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