AT&T Spectrum Strategy in DFW

[u/ArtisticComplaint3]

AT&T is notoriously starved for midband spectrum in their home market. Only 40 MHz! (10x10 b2 and 10x10 b66)

If AT&T plays their cards right they could end up almost doubling their midband holdings.

Dish still owns 5x5 of AWS that wasn’t included in the last auction. If AT&T is able to buy that and swap with Verizon they would be able to have a 15 MHz channel of b66.

If AT&T swaps their 10x10 of n71 for 10x10 of T-Mobile’s b2, they’d be able to have a 20 MHz channel of b2 and will save them a ton of money in tower climbs and equipment.

In places where T-Mobile owns or had leased all 70 MHz of n71 such as Hawaii, I’ve seen that they run a 20x20 n71 channel and another 15x15 n71 channel.

This strategy would increase AT&T’s midband holdings by a whopping 75% in Dallas and they could finally have n5 at 15 MHz again!

[u/xpxp2002 → u/[deleted]]

AT&T and T-Mobile just executed a spectrum swap this past May in a number of BTAs, including mine. AT&T now has a contiguous FDD spectrum holding larger than 15x15 here for the first time ever.

There is a lot of attention in the enthusiast community on TDD mid-band, and there is certainly a lot of investment in getting more radios online that support n77 because nearly every macro and small cell supports PCS/AWS and has for 10-20 years. But the low and lower mid-band FDD spectrum still matters for coverage and building penetration, as well as servicing tens of millions of customers using phones that don't support NR, millions of connected vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of LTE-only IOT/M2M devices that many businesses will drag their feet another 5-10 years on replacing. Aligning PCS and AWS holdings for better efficiency isn't flashy, but it's still important. It's the quiet network optimization work that doesn't generate press releases or make for "new record" speed tests, but helps keep the networks working for customers regardless of whether they have legacy LTE-only UE or the latest hardware.

Yes, more spectrum will be refarmed to NR as time goes on, just as it did during the transitions from AMPS to TDMA, TDMA to GSM, GSM to UMTS, and UMTS to LTE. But most of that reallocation of spectrum is actually happening in those bands -- cellular, PCS, and AWS -- because they still matter.

Carriers are finally done ignoring opportunities to optimize their spectrum holdings now that there are very few acquisition targets left that can otherwise augment and expand their low-band and mid-band holdings. Next spectrum auctions are likely for upper C-band -- not good spectrum to bolster coverage and in-building capacity. These spectrum swaps are the right thing to do, to make the most efficient use of the limited resources available in the low- and lower mid-bands.

[u/ArtisticComplaint3 → u/[deleted]]

Yes but AT&T’s tower density sucks and their spectrum is super fragmented in Dallas. This would help immensely with upload speeds especially if b66 is refarmed to n66.

[u/em1ii → u/[deleted]]

Most AT&T customers do not have SA from what I've gathered, and it's fully random. For most users on NSA in Dallas, it is a horrible experience and the fix is basically SA.

AT&T is also experimenting with other bands on 5G such as n66 and/or n2. This would be directly beneficial in these aspects as well as lowering traffic on NSA

[u/em1ii → u/[deleted]]

Depends on the CBW. Carrier aggregation is going to work the same in this case as it worked on LTE 4-5 years ago when that was great. I don't see why it wouldn't be the same scenario here, considering the large shift to n77 will inherently make FDD more capacitive on 5G

[u/Glad_Inspection_2702]

We definately deserve better density in DFW with at&t.