Paul Allen selling 700 MHz spectrum to AT&T

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is looking to sell 24 licenses in the 700 MHz band in Oregon and Washington to AT&T Mobility, according to documents filed with the FCC.

Allen holds the licenses through his company, Seattle-based Vulcan Spectrum. The licences include the cities of Seattle and Portland. The FCC has yet to approve the deal.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the documents, and AT&T spokesman Michael Coe declined to comment on the value of the proposed deal, according to Bloomberg. Coe said AT&T would use the spectrum to support its LTE rollout and meet the demand for mobile services in the Northwest. The company is going to begin LTE trials next year, with commercial deployments coming in 2011.

In an FCC filing, AT&T and Allen's Vulcan argued that the transaction would not cause "an aggregation of spectrum that would pose an anti-competitive risk." They added: "These post-transaction holdings will not exceed the commission's initial screen in any county, and thus no additional review of this transaction for competitive harm from a spectrum aggregation standpoint is called for."

AT&T and Verizon Wireless were the two largest winners of spectrum at last year's 700 MHz spectrum auction. Verizon has already begun testing LTE in its 700 MHz holdings.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article [1]
- see this FCC filing

[2]Related Articles:
AT&T pays Sprint $59M in spectrum swap [3]
AT&T buys $2.5B worth of 700 MHz [4]