Quote Originally Posted by torontocolin View Post
Mobilicity can compensate for much of the shortcomings of higher frequencies in urban areas through densification, and then differentiate on price. I'm not saying they shouldn't try for 700, as there are obviously benefits if they can secure some, but they can live without it.
Quote Originally Posted by icemasta View Post
Mobi ONLY covering select cities should mean they should focus on acquiring more bandwidth in AWS than utilzing most of their capital on the 700Mhz auction. Considering the only cities Mobi plans to offer service are the more heavily populated ones, additional bandwidth will go a much longer and cheaper way than acquiring the little amount of 700Mhz spectrum that will most likely be available to them after all the other carriers take their slice.

Yes the 700Mhz allows for better reception but lets be honest it's not going to be cheap. Also reception issues can be potentially solved to a certain extent with adding more towers and repeaters and considering there are only in select cities and don't have to worry about national coverage, it should cost less than buying expensive spectrum.
Quote Originally Posted by torontocolin View Post
Exactly. Like it or not, Mobilicity is a discount carrier. The way discount carriers survive is by staying lean, and exploiting market inefficiencies...
At some point they have to weigh the cost of 700 spectrum, and if it crosses a certain threshold they need to look elsewhere. If they can acquire a combination of 2.5 GHz and more AWS for half the cost of 700, and then use the difference to deploy LTE faster, or increase densification, then that's definitely what I'd do.

Keep in mind that lots of carriers use exclusively higher frequencies in urban areas. Most HSPA networks in Europe are exclusively 2100, but you'll find their coverage in urban areas to be excellent. In Australia, which is a better geographical comp, they use 2100 for urban areas and lower frequencies (850 and 900) for rural deployment. In urban areas, you can build a solid wireless network with exclusively high frequency spectrum.
I see a lot of merit in these perspectives. I remain quite unconvinced that 700MHz spectrum is a must-have for Mobilicity's future prospects.