AT&T recently announced it is planning to purchasing spectrum in the lower 700 MHz frequency band from Qualcomm, for the price of $1.925 billion. This spectrum recently belongs to the infamous FLO TV service, which Qualcomm plans to completely shut down by March 2011. The bands cover more than 300 million people In the U.S., of which 70 million subscribers are in the large metro areas of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
AT&T announced that it will purchase spectrum licenses in the lower 700MHz frequency band from Qualcomm for $1.925 billion today. the spectrum to build out its 4G mobile broadband network will be used by AT&T. in March 2011 Qualcomm currently uses the licenses to run its FLO TV business, which it will shut down. The 700MHz spectrum covers 300 million users in the U. S. Qualcomm and AT&T expects closing the sale during the second half of 2011. It’s still subject to regulatory business approval.
The Dallas, Texas-based cellular company AT&T should expect to continue healthy revenue and profits in the short term even losing its exclusivity agreement on the iPhone, according to analysts. The telecommunications giant, which has been the sole carrier of iPhone since its arrival on the U.S. market, is set to lose exclusivity when Apple’s famous handset begins selling at Verizon early next year.