Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) could be a solution to MetroPCS's (NASDAQ:PCS) spectrum shortage, said MetroPCS CFO Braxton Carter during the Deutsche Bank Securities Leveraged Finance conference last week.
Braxton said MetroPCS is "uniquely positioned" to do something with Clearwire and even suggested that Clearwire's 2.5 GHz spectrum could provide a hot spot overlay for MetroPCS in major metropolitan areas. Clearwire desperately needs to show progress with wholesale partners, especially now that Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) has declared it will use its own spectrum to deploy LTE, essentially bypassing Clearwire altogether.
However, Carter said MetroPCS is exploring other options besides Clearwire by saying SpectrumCo partnership's AWS spectrum was very appealing to the firm. SpectrumCo is the joint venture of cable companies Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable that spent $2.4 billion in a 2006 FCC auction on AWS spectrum licenses covering a large part of the U.S. Braxton noted, however, that the SpectrumCo joint venture hasn't shown any signs of wanting to monetize that spectrum.
MetroPCS currently offers LTE service in 14 markets. However, the company's LTE footprint is dwarfed by Verizon Wireless' (NYSE:VZ) LTE play. MetroPCS owns both PCS and AWS spectrum, and has an average of 22 MHz of spectrum in its markets.
For more:
- see this FierceWireless article
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