T-Mobile US Inc CFO Suggests Partnership With DISH Network Corp Again

[Shilohcane]

With both Google and Vofone starting new MVNO under T-Mobile this year, a partnership with Dish's unused Spectrum could really plug a lot of holes in TMO's network. Dish is the 5th largest Spectrum holder in the USA but hasn't used this spectrum to this point. Dish MUST start deploying at least 40% of their Spectrum by 2016 or they will have to return some of their spectrum to the FCC. Dish Networks owns spectrum but doesn't have the money to deploy cell towers. Dish is looking for a outlet for their Dish TV video so they could could stream video to mobile devices and to building without a satellites connections. Dish wants to partner with a Wireless Telco provider that has the wireless tower equipment. Both, AT&T and Verizon both offer TV/Video competition to Dish Networks TV.

New article with some extra info that hints that Dish and TMO may partner to share Dish current Spectrum and help on build out plus hints on partnership for the 600Mhz Auction in 2016;

T-Mobile US Inc CFO Suggests Partnership With DISH Network Corp Again

 

[Almeuit]

IIRC Dish has tons of spectrum so that would be huge.

 

[Crashdamage]

T-Mobile + Dish makes sense. I can see this actually happening. It would have a lot of the advantages of a merger but without so much FCC scrutiny.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.

 

[Shilohcane]

IIRC Dish has tons of spectrum so that would be huge.

But Dish has the wrong type of spectrum for the most part. Dish does have some small blocks of 700Mhz from the 2008 FCC auction that would be great for TMO's LTE carrier aggregation. Dish in 2008 (bidding through EchoStar and the Frontier Wireless moniker) purchased around $700 million of unpaired E Block spectrum across the country. But the 6 MHz E Block isn't really suitable for standard, two-way wireless communications. However, it is good for one-way broadcasts like Video. -- source-- http://www.fiercewireless.com/story...pectrum-mobile-tv-play-dont-bet-it/2012-02-08

Dish is the nations 5th largest spectrum holder but in the wireless telco most of it is in the AWS-3 spectrum. T-Mobile has a lot of AWS-3 now which is why TMO only won $1.8B in the AWS-3 auction to speed up LTE in some markets. What T-Mobile needs is sub-1Ghz spectrum which AT&T and Verizon own about 66% of that spectrum. Sprint and T-Mobile have tons of spectrum but both only control less than 10% of the sub-1Ghz spectrum. T-Mobile and Sprint are both going to be going after the next FCC 600Mhz auction in 2016 and AT&T and Verizon is going to try to keep this 600Mhz out of T-Mobile and Spints hands so they can't keep their prices higher for better service.



The FCC limits spectrum holding by company. Since Sprint acquired Clearwire they got a ton of spectrum at 2.5Ghz and above. One reason that Sprint skipped the AWE-3 FCC auction that just ended was that it would hinder Sprint in the next FCC auction in 2016 for the 600Mhz spectrum that is the Holy Grail.

Read this article; "Sprint won't participate in AWS-3 spectrum auction, ceding opportunity to competitors"

" Sprint has 120 to 150 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the top 100 markets. Moreover, the FCC recently ruled that Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum should fall under the agency's "spectrum screen," which is designed to cap the amount of spectrum any one carrier can own. Sprint had argued that its higher-band 2.3 GHz (WCS) spectrum and 2.5Ghz (BRS) spectrum shouldn't be counted by the screen. The result is that Sprint might exceed the screen if it participates in the AWS-3 auction." -- Sprint won't participate in AWS-3 spectrum auction, ceding opportunity to competitors - FierceWireless

 

[Shilohcane]

The reason why TMO's John Legere likes this Dish spectrum is that Dish has damaged AT&T and Verizon in the next 600Mhz FCC Auction. T-Mobile needs sub-1 Ghz spectrum and has all the AWS they need. Verizon is who needs more AWS spectrum and as this article say;

"TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar told me that for the most part Dish "focused on the key cities, where the expectation is Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are most capacity constrained and therefore have the most need to get access to additional spectrum."

"The whole point here is that he [Ergen] is his basically trying to force Verizon or AT&T to buy or lease some of Dish's spectrum," he added. "No way this is a precursor to [Dish] building something out."

What Dish might do next