Verizon to Swap Its 700MHz for U.S. Cellular's 1900MHz

[lostinohio]

If Verizon does Swap Its 700MHz for U.S. Cellular's 1900MHz is approved and does follow thru, does anyone know if this could potentially include Cass, Carrol counties of Indiana? Could the US Cellular become Verizon Network?

[newyork4me]

No, it's just spectrum with no customers. It isn't the whole amount either, just 10Mhz of USCC's 30Mhz. VZW is getting the 10Mhz of PCS in LaSalle County, IL and Indianapolis, IN. Verizon is giving up nearly all of their 700Mhz spectrum besides the nationwide 22Mhz license in Idaho, Washington, Illinois, Oklahoma, and the other states that I can't remember.

[hwertz]

Do you know if they are giving any up in Iowa? USCC has EVDO here, actually has a little more "normal" spectrum than VZW (cellular + 1 block of PCS -- don't know if it's a larger block or a small one though... vs. VZW's cellular only.) So, both have 1X+EVDO here, good to see USCC has some aspirations towards LTE (more competition is better than less after all.)

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[newyork4me]

Do you know if they are giving any up in Iowa? USCC has EVDO here, actually has a little more "normal" spectrum than VZW (cellular + 1 block of PCS -- don't know if it's a larger block or a small one though... vs. VZW's cellular only.) So, both have 1X+EVDO here, good to see USCC has some aspirations towards LTE (more competition is better than less after all.)

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No Iowa spectrum is being swapped. Just Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington.

[boomhower]

Why are they doing this? 700Mhz rocks for penetration. Why go so high?

[ilvla2]

It's definitely not here in NorCal, USCC only has 850 licenses here. However, USCC did purchase some 700 in the last auction that includes NorCal, and they got some areas they don't currently serve in NorCal like Shasta, Glenn, Tehama and Colusa Counties. Shasta County would be a good addition to their base, as it includes Redding, the largest city in NorCal north of Santa Rosa and Sacramento at 90,000.

[sodomojo]

It's definitely not here in NorCal, USCC only has 850 licenses here. However, USCC did purchase some 700 in the last auction that includes NorCal, and they got some areas they don't currently serve in NorCal like Shasta, Glenn, Tehama and Colusa Counties. Shasta County would be a good addition to their base, as it includes Redding, the largest city in NorCal north of Santa Rosa and Sacramento at 90,000.

Like clockwork, there it is.....

[ilvla2]

You need a hobby, but I guess you're too busy being rude, obnoxious and insulting for that. Thanks for the feedback, have a great day!

edit-Ahhh, much better

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Okay, back to the thread at hand.

[mdasen]

Why are they doing this? 700Mhz rocks for penetration. Why go so high?

Probably to shore-up CDMA capacity. First, one needs to remember that Verizon isn't giving up all their 700MHz spectrum in those areas. They will still have 22MHz.

Beyond that, it isn't just about the spectrum itself. There's the issue of compatibility with current devices and current capacity constraints. 700MHz spectrum isn't going to be providing capacity for CDMA phones. It's useful for LTE devices in the future, but that's a bit away (despite many people here being early adopters of new technologies). Verizon clearly wanted those two 10MHz PCS licenses really badly to improve capacity in those two markets. They gave up 18 700MHz licenses, each of which was 12MHz. It might have been that the two PCS licenses were in Chicago and Indianapolis while they gave USCC less urban 700MHz licenses. In that case, it might make good sense - Verizon isn't likely to need more than 22MHz for rural coverage since capacity won't be constrained there. It might mean that Verizon feels they desperately need capacity enhancement in those markets as soon as possible and will be able to deal with less spectrum for LTE.

It's somewhat hard to tell since the FCC documents only show two of the licenses Verizon is going to transfer to USCC (Springfield, IL and Yakima, WA). The two licenses Verizon is getting are for La Salle, IL and Indianapolis, IN. So, it looks like part of it is that Verizon is feeling spectrum constrained in Indianapolis.

Companies don't make these decisions without thinking hard about it. Verizon isn't giving up all their 700MHz spectrum in those markets and the 1900MHz spectrum in Indianapolis might mean capacity alleviation in the short term and greater capacity for LTE and beyond later on. While initial LTE rollouts will be at 700MHz and AWS, the 1900MHz spectrum could be re-purposed as the CDMA network gets phased out. EV-DO and CDMA are still alive and well and need to be dealt with. I'm guessing the CDMA iPhone is selling well and that's going to create additional strain on the network and LTE Android devices are expensive right now (and voice is still being carried on CDMA for them). So, it might be a case where Verizon is giving up some rural 700MHz licenses where they won't need capacity to make sure that their CDMA network keeps humming along under increased usage.

[newyork4me]

Why are they doing this? 700Mhz rocks for penetration. Why go so high?

As mdasen said, it is capacity problems. LaSalle, IL seemed like an odd market to have capacity issues in, but I know VZW has been running poorly in Indianapolis. It's good that VZW is trying to address some of their oversold markets with this trade.

[XFF]

VZW only holds 5 LSMH C-block licenses (which came from the ALLTEL acquisition, VZW itself never participated in the LSMH C-block auctions):

• CMA176 - Springfield, IL
• CMA196 - Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, IL
• CMA250 - Bloomington-Normal, IL
• CMA399 - Illinois 6 - Montgomery
• CMA400 - Illinois 7 - Vermilion

By relinquishing every one of those LSMH C-block licenses, VZW is clearly indicating that they had no plans to ever utilize that band, so this is kind of a house-keeping effort as much as anything else.

Keep in mind that there are no handsets (or I should probably say chipsets) that support all SMH bands and blocks. VZW is focusing on USMH C-block, which they're currently deploying exclusively, with possible fallback on LSMH A- and B-block. Throwing LSMH C-block into the mix would have resulted in far too much complexity on the chipset/filter side, so they figured it's easier long-term to just get rid of those holding and refocus on something else.

FWIW, AT&T only holds LSMH B- and C-block licenses (and is acquiring LSMH D- and E-block from QUALCOMM). They have nothing in LSMH A-block or any of the USMH blocks.

Like I said, SMH chipsets do not work across all the various sub-bands and blocks, they're specialized and tuned to a couple blocks, and due to technological limitations that'll probably be that way for the foreseeable future. So unlike with PCS or AWS where one chip works across the entire band, top to bottom, SMH providers concentrate their holdings into a couple of blocks and order the corresponding chipsets for their handsets. It made perfect sense for VZW to rid itself of those 5 LSMH C-block licenses since they would not have been used in the foreseeable future anyways.

[lostinohio]

I am sorry if someone thought I was being rude, I did not mean to come over as being rude, I wasnt sure what all this swap consisted of. Thank you for your responses.

[gvillager]

I am sorry if someone thought I was being rude, I did not mean to come over as being rude, I wasnt sure what all this swap consisted of. Thank you for your responses.

I don't think your the one they were referring to.

[hwertz]

I am sorry if someone thought I was being rude, I did not mean to come over as being rude, I wasnt sure what all this swap consisted of. Thank you for your responses.

LOL that was sodomojo and ivla2 havin a back and forth.

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[nateo200]

VZW only holds 5 LSMH C-block licenses (which came from the ALLTEL acquisition, VZW itself never participated in the LSMH C-block auctions):

• CMA176 - Springfield, IL
• CMA196 - Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, IL
• CMA250 - Bloomington-Normal, IL
• CMA399 - Illinois 6 - Montgomery
• CMA400 - Illinois 7 - Vermilion

By relinquishing every one of those LSMH C-block licenses, VZW is clearly indicating that they had no plans to ever utilize that band, so this is kind of a house-keeping effort as much as anything else.

Keep in mind that there are no handsets (or I should probably say chipsets) that support all SMH bands and blocks. VZW is focusing on USMH C-block, which they're currently deploying exclusively, with possible fallback on LSMH A- and B-block. Throwing LSMH C-block into the mix would have resulted in far too much complexity on the chipset/filter side, so they figured it's easier long-term to just get rid of those holding and refocus on something else.

FWIW, AT&T only holds LSMH B- and C-block licenses (and is acquiring LSMH D- and E-block from QUALCOMM). They have nothing in LSMH A-block or any of the USMH blocks.

Like I said, SMH chipsets do not work across all the various sub-bands and blocks, they're specialized and tuned to a couple blocks, and due to technological limitations that'll probably be that way for the foreseeable future. So unlike with PCS or AWS where one chip works across the entire band, top to bottom, SMH providers concentrate their holdings into a couple of blocks and order the corresponding chipsets for their handsets. It made perfect sense for VZW to rid itself of those 5 LSMH C-block licenses since they would not have been used in the foreseeable future anyways.

Hmm I feared this...great...back to more handset incompatibility!