AT&T announced Friday that its acquiring spectrum from the nation’s top Verizon Wireless in a deal that AT&T says is worth $1.9 billion.
The spectrum, we are told, is in the 700 MHz B band. The deal targets markets in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Fresno, and Portland.
The 700 MHz licenses to be acquired by AT&T cover 42 million people in 18 states — California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
“This acquisition complements AT&T’s existing holdings in the 700 MHz B band and will allow AT&T to continue to quickly deploy 4G LTE services to meet demand for mobile Internet services on a wide array of smartphones, tablets and other devices,” AT&T says.
As of November 2012, AT&T still plans to reach 300 million people in the U.S. with its 4G LTE network by the end of 2014.
