AT&T Buys Qualcomm’s 4G Spectrum For $1.925 Billion
AT&T and Qualcomm announced yesterday that AT&T has agreed to purchase spectrum licenses in the Lower 700 MHz frequency band from Qualcomm for $1.925 billion. The move will bolster AT&Ts ability to provide an advanced 4G mobile broadband experience for its customers in the years ahead. This is critical for AT&T as the company needs this spectrum to launch their Long Term Evolution (LTE) services, that is slated to be rolled out to customers next year. The other side of this story is that MediaFLO or FLO TV by Qualcomm looks like it might be dead in the water. MediaFLO was launched in 2007 and never seemed to take off. Qualcomm has never disclosed how many subscribers the service had.
Qualcomm currently uses the licenses to support the service business of FLO TV Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, and the sale follows Qualcomms previously announced plan to evaluate strategic options for the FLO TV business. Qualcomm expects that the FLO TV business and network will be shut down in March 2011. The spectrum covers more than 300 million people total nationwide: 12 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D and E block spectrum covers more than 70 million people in five of the top 15 U.S. metropolitan areas New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco; 6 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D block spectrum covers more than 230 million people across the rest of the U.S. As part of its longer-term 4G network plans, AT&T intends to deploy this spectrum as supplemental downlink, using carrier aggregation technology
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