T-Mobile wants customers to call Congress, FCC

T-Mobile is urging customers to speak out about the government’s upcoming spectrum auction next year. 

The mobile company wants customers to pressure Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to make sure its priorities are heard ahead of the multibillion-dollar auction of airwaves, which are essential for the growth of mobile networks. 

John Legere, the company’s chief executive, called the AWS-3 spectrum auction that concluded last month a “disaster” for consumers, because three companies dominated it. 

Of the nearly $45 billion bid, AT&T and Verizon alone spent more than $28 billion. Dish spent about $13 billion. T-Mobile did not bid hard in the past auction, spending just $1.7 billion. But the company is expected make a more aggressive push in next year’s auction. 

“Three companies alone spent an insane $42 billion between them, grabbing a ridiculous 94 percent of the spectrum sold at this auction,” Legere wrote in a blog post. 

“This whole thing should scare the hell out of you and every other wireless consumer in the US, because there is another important auction coming next year, and the results have to be different if wireless competition is going to survive.”

The company urged customers to write and tweet at members of Congress and the FCC. 

T-Mobile is the fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States, behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. 

In the auction that just concluded, the government sold off “mid-band” airwave frequencies, which are good for carrying data. The type of “low-band” spectrum included in next year’s auction, however, is more prized by phone companies. As T-Mobile notes, the low-band spectrum allows carriers to cover “more distance and get those signals deeper into your home and office.”

Verizon and AT&T currently have nearly three quarters of the entire low-band spectrum in the phone market. Describing itself as an insurgent company, T-Mobile said the rules must allow it to have an impact. 

It is calling for half of the spectrum to be reserved for others. It is also opposing any further delay in the auction, while also calling to prevent companies from buying up spectrum with no intention of using it. 

“The decisions the Federal Communications Commission makes will forever determine the choices available to American wireless customers in the future,” Legere said. 

While not mentioning T-Mobile specifically, a pair of lawmakers made many of the same points in a letter to the FCC on Thursday. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) noted Verizon’s and AT&T’s spectrum dominance. 

“[T]he Commission should continue to evaluate its auction rules to ensure they are sufficient to prevent excessive concentration of spectrum among the nation’s largest wireless providers,” they wrote in the letter. “Such a reassessment can and should be completed without delaying the start of the auction in early 2016.”