The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved AT&T Inc.'s $1.925 billion acquisition of spectrum from Qualcomm Inc.
The deal gives AT&T six megahertz of unpaired 700 MHz spectrum nationwide and six megahertz of the same spectrum in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
The agency raised some concerns related to the acquisition's impact on competition and imposed some conditions on the deal in order to limit or prevent any anticompetitive behavior.
In an order released Thursday, the FCC said it anticipated the acquisition "would facilitate the transition of underutilized unpaired 700 MHz spectrum towards mobile broadband use, thereby supporting our goal of expanding mobile broadband deployment throughout the country."
Michael Copps, a Democrat commissioner who is leaving the agency after roughly a 10-year stint, dissented. He said the agreement between AT&T and Qualcomm means the two largest U.S. wireless providers -- AT&T and Verizon Wireless -- will control nearly three quarters of the spectrum below 1 GHz based on one measurement.
"The Commission imposes two conditions here -- one related to data roaming and one to interference. These conditions will benefit competition, to be sure, but they fall short of what I believe" federal communications law requires, Copps said.
Dallas-based AT&T had cited a looming shortage of spectrum as one of the most compelling reasons for its now-defunct acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The Justice Department and FCC raised a number of concerns over the merger's impact on competition, and AT&T and T-Mobile's parent, Deutsche Telekom, recently decided to kill the $39 billion deal in the face of such strong government opposition.
