T-Mobile receives licenses for the 31MHz of 600MHz spectrum won in the FCC auction

Yesterday, the FCC handed over to T-Mobile licenses to cover the 31MHz of 600MHz spectrum that it won at the FCC's auction of low frequency airwaves. Unlike high-frequency airwaves, these travel farther and penetrate buildings better. By year's end, the nation's third largest carrier will own more than 1-million square miles of 600MHz spectrum. T-Mobile already has 700MHz low-frequency spectrum that it employs for its Extended Range LTE service.

New handsets from Samsung and other phone manufacturers will be available around the end of the year, allowing T-Mobile customers to take advantage of the features found with low-band spectrum. And while the auction allowed T-Mobile to quadruple its holdings of the low-frequency stuff,  Sprint has been hoarding inventory of the high band 2.5GHz airwaves, which is one reason why many analysts call a T-Mobile purchase of Sprint the best possible M&A combination in the business.

In addition to using the 600MHz spectrum to enhance and improve its LTE pipeline, T-Mobile also will be using some of this spectrum to build out the planned nationwide 5G network it talked about early last month.

source: T-Mobile