AT&T on ambitious buying spree to catch Verizon in airwaves race
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2012, 1:52 PM
AT&T is cobbling together about $2.6 billion in deals for airwaves to catch up with Verizon Wireless, which has vaulted ahead in the race to stockpile the industry’s most precious asset.
AT&T has proposed at least 24 deals in the past four months for the rights to spectrum, the radio waves used to transmit mobile-phone calls and data connections. Verizon won U.S. approval on Aug. 23 to buy airwave rights from Comcast Corp. and three other cable companies for $3.9 billion.
In addition to keeping up with Verizon, AT&T’s buying spree is an effort to relieve pressure on its network as data traffic from smartphones and tablets taxes its wireless coverage, said Chris King, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore. Acquiring more government licenses to use spectrum gives companies greater capacity on their networks to handle demand.
https://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/08/att_on_ambitious_buying_spree.html