AT&T Threatens Boycott if TV Airwaves Auction Rules Aren’t Changed

I strongly believe that there is only enough spectrum for three strong national carriers - Right now neither T-Mobile or Sprint has enough spectrum capacity on their own to be truly competitive, with AT&T and even more so, Verizon, if Sprint and T-Mo were to merge, it'd be a very different picture.

You cannot built a nationwide LTE network on 2.5 ghz - the required tower density is too great to ever get a workable rate of return on investment. You need 1900 mhz or lower - even at 1900, the tower spacing is close. Ideally, you'd have a mix of 800/1900 with 800 mhz providing a single LTE carrier, and a single 2G/3G carrier (or more where spectrum allows), then 1900 and 2.5 would be used in rural, urban and suburban areas to provide real capacity where needed. Sprint is doing this now, rolling out LTE and CDMA 1x on the former iDEN spectrum as it rolls out LTE, with CDMA2000 and LTE on 1900 as well - then in some places the 2.5 network from clearwire is being overlayed on top - the CW network has been upgraded for LTE, and the 2.5 deployment is starting for the new LTE hardware as well.

For true national reach though, they need more spectrum - its possible to provide at least 2/2mbps broadband to everyone nationwide - but not the way its being done - if this spectrum can be auctioned with some left aside for the smaller carriers, it might just change that game, otherwise merger is required.

That's nice, the rest of the world will get on with innovating and AT&T can go the way of the dodo.

You won't come to the party? Okay, see you...

Hey AT&T, cry me a river.