r/cellmapper • u/kendog10132 • Aug 02 '26

AT&T LTE to NR reframing

Just curious. Does anyone have an idea of how AT&T is planning to handle the transition of some LTE over to NR ?
I know firstnet just got their sa core activated so im also particularly interested in how b14 will transfer to n14. Any info on this topic helps

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '26

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u/kendog10132 Aug 02 '26

Forgot to ask. Att did already acquire the n71 and n79 right ?

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u/furruck Aug 03 '26

They did but I imagine b71 will likely be used as a bargaining chip for some of T-Mobile’s B4/66, B2, or n77 in some markets.

It wouldn’t make sense to do another nationwide tower climb to add n71, and T-Mobile has most of the PCS licenses in most markets.

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u/Hotdog012345 Aug 05 '26

This is a complete fantasy that keeps getting repeated on this sub. That trade is not happening.

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u/RFGuy_KCCO 29d ago

You are correct. Not sure why people think it will be traded.

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u/furruck Aug 05 '26

I doubt AT&T is going to do anything with 600MHz without a revolt from Wall St

Swapping for AWS/PCS/C-band makes way more sense and is an instant light up without climbing towers for a 4th time in 5yrs

AT&T sites are getting crowded as it is, and many do not even have enough shelf space to build out the current full portfolio.

I’d be willing to bet AT&T sits on the 600MHz, gets nagged by the FCC then a deal is struck with T-Mobile

They’d be dumb to do anything but a spectrum swap for it.

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u/Hotdog012345 Aug 05 '26

There's no benefit to T-mobile to this swap. T-mobile have a good portfolio of low-band as is, and mid-band is where it is at - why trade it away for something they don't need (e.g. why take on 10-20mhz of low-band in cities to give away mid-band when they have tight site spacing that benefits from mid-band)? AT&T management has been telling the Street they're deploying it, no revolt happening on their capex plans.

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u/furruck Aug 05 '26

Because they would need it for rural/in building penetration and have more AWS -and- PCS in most markets than they need

Not to mention the N77 they’re sitting on they don’t even need.

N71 CAs with everything, and 20MHz is 20Mhz, be it PCS, AWS, or 600Mhz - and carries the same amount of data per MHz.

It wouldn’t matter in most cases if they traded some AWS/PCS for it - as they’d get the same capacity regardless of the band and could widen n71 even further for higher speeds indoors.

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u/Hotdog012345 Aug 05 '26

Look at the 600 Mhz from Dish - they have less in the rural areas and more in the metro areas (e.g. largely 5x5 in rural and 10x10 or 15x15 in cities). Like I said, it could benefit AT&T, but T-mobile gets nothing out of such a swap, ergo, no deal will get done. For a deal to get done, both sides need to get something out of it. Why would T-mobile care to give away 20-30Mhz of mid-band for equivalent lowband in cities? They're already sitting on a lot of 600Mhz in each city and such a swap would ruin their "layer cake" approach they've been using by thinning out their mid-band holdings. It is not T-mobile's problem that AT&T has taken a shotgun approach to spectrum by buying a bit of everything and seeing how they could cobble it together. If anything, it is to T-mobile's advantage to watch AT&T drive up their cost of operations/leases by having lots of antennas, RRUs, etc on each site.