T-Mobile Tries to Block AT&T Low-Band Spectrum Buy

T-Mobile has asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny the transfer of low-band spectrum to AT&T through a secondary market transaction. T-Mobile has been asking the FCC to set aside more low-band spectrum for competitive carriers -- like T-Mobile -- in the upcoming incentive auction, pointing out that AT&T and Verizon combined already have mode than two-thirds of that beachfront spectrum nationwide. T-Mobile is also trying to prevent AT&T from getting any more spectrum through a proposed purchase of spectrum from East Kentucky Network.

"AT&T has failed to meet the applicable heightened standards for demonstrating that the proposed transaction is in the public interest when balanced with the serious anticompetitive risks posed by the increased concentration of below-1-GHz spectrum," T-Mobile said in petitioning to deny the sale. Elsewhere T-Mobile and its CEO, John Legere, are hammering AT&T and Verizon for their low-band holdings in a new Web video pushing the FCC to expand its incentive auction low-band spectrum set-aside.