Verizon Wireless, metroPCS Win New Spectrum
Jul 8, 2004, 5:03 PM by (staff)
In a private auction today, NextWave Telecom sold three PCS spectrum licenses. Verizon Wireless won a coveted 10 MHz license for the New York City metro area with a winning bid of $930 million. In addition, metroPCS snapped up 10 MHz licenses for two markets in Florida for $43.5 million. The licenses cover Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater and Sarasota-Bradenton. $398 million of the auction proceeds will be paid to the FCC, in accordance with a recent agreement stemming from the NextWave's bankruptcy proceedings.
Comments
Verizon's spectrum lust
This is actually a very good strategy. Verizon has two strengths at this point, a strong balance sheet and a large subscriber base. i can not fault them for trying to profit from their strengths.
I think verizon wireless, whose parent's claim the operation has been profitable for years, was trying to spend its competitors, especially debt ladden Sprint, into the ground. EV-DO was one way of doing so, acquiring more spectrum is the other. More spectrum means better quality of service (less interference per band per cell hence fewer dropped calls), ability to offer more talk minutes per dollar and ability to offer a greater variety of services (a la...
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viper said:...
obviously Verizon wants more spectrum pretty badly. they keep buying more and more of it.
This is actually a very good strategy. Verizon has two strengths at this point, a strong balance sheet and a large subscriber
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So where they're already maxed out on 1xRTT, they can't roll out EV-DO without more spectrum.
Plus, EV-DO is a "shared pipe", so the more pe...
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Metro Licenses.
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