The FCC has decided to allow AT&T to have more than one-third of the low-band spectrum in two markets in Texas. It granted the assignment of two C-Block (lower 700 MHz) licesnes from Peoples Wireless Services to AT&T Mobility, saying it would not foreclose competition and had public interest benefits. It also helped that no petitions to deny the deal, or even comments on it, were filed.

Control of more than one third of the low-band spectrum in a market (the FCC's so-called "spectrum screen") triggers enhanced FCC scrutiny for anticompetitive issues, but does not preclude a transaction if the public benefits outweigh the harms.

Low-band (under 1 GHz) spectrum, like that in the broadcast incentive auction, is an issue with the FCC, which wants to make sure that beachfront wireless spectrum is not concentrated in too few hands, hence the 1/3 holdings trigger for enhanced review.

But in this case, said the FCC, other major providers have significant market share and acess to low-band spectrum sufficient to deploy LTE, as well as above-1 GHz spectrum to help with LTE.

"We find that the acquisition of this spectrum by AT&T is unlikely to foreclose rival service providers from entering or expanding in these two local markets, and is unlikely to raise rivals’ costs."

As to the public interest benefits, the FCC signaled that the bar was lower given the deal's low likelihood of competitive harms, but said it anticipates that "AT&T would be able to deploy a more robust LTE network in a relatively short period of time."

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The FCC has voted not to increase its planned reserve of 30 MHz of low-band spectrum for competitive wireless carriers in the forward auction of broadcast spectrum.

"Non-nationwide providers as well as nationwide providers who currently hold less than one-third of available high-quality low-band spectrum in a given license area will be eligible to utilize this first-of-its-kind reserve," the FCC said.

The commission had already voted for the 30-MHz reserve, but had been asked to increase it to 40 MHz given that the top two carriers -- Verizon and AT&T -- already had the majority of low-band spectrum.

The vote came Wednesday (Aug. 5) and was thus pulled from the Aug. 6 agenda for the FCC's public meeting.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn voted in support of the reserve, but dissented from the decision not to expand it.

"In my opinion, such a change would have greatly incentivized competitive wireless carriers, particularly those who are reserve eligible in the vast majority of the markets, to bid more in the forward auction," Clyburn said, "It also would have created greater certainty that we could recover more spectrum from broadcasters."

T-Mobile has asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny the transfer of low-band spectrum to AT&T through a secondary market transaction.

T-Mobile has been asking the FCC to set aside more low-band spectrum for competitive carriers -- like T-Mobile -- in the upcoming incentive auction, pointing out that AT&T and Verizon combined already have mode than two-thirds of that beachfront spectrum nationwide. T-Mobile is also trying to prevent AT&T from getting any more spectrum through a proposed purchase of spectrum from East Kentucky Network.

"AT&T has failed to meet the applicable heightened standards for demonstrating that the proposed transaction is in the public interest when balanced with the serious anticompetitive risks posed by the increased concentration of below-1-GHz spectrum," T-Mobile said in petitioning to deny the sale.

Elsewhere T-Mobile and its CEO, John Legere, are hammering AT&T and Verizon for their low-band holdings in a new Web video pushing the FCC to expand its incentive auction low-band spectrum set-aside.

In a blog post, Joan Marsh, AT&T VP, federal regulatory, responded to the petition.

"The purchase will give AT&T the needed spectrum footprint to deploy up to a 10×10 MHz LTE network in these markets, which will enable AT&T to offer faster and higher quality services to its rural customers," said Marsh. "The proposed transaction also has no adverse competitive effects. AT&T will not exceed the Commission’s spectrum aggregation screen and — because the spectrum at issue currently sits completely fallow and unused – the deal will not reduce any actual competition. Yet, T-Mobile complains, arguing that AT&T should not be permitted to buy and deploy this fallow spectrum and that AT&T should not be allowed to invest in these rural communities to deploy high quality LTE services."

"Looking at T-Mobile’s current and proposed coverage maps, it's readily apparent that T-Mobile offers very little coverage in these markets today," said Marsh. "Moreover, even as it purportedly expands to cover 300M POPs by the end of 2015, T-Mobile has only limited plans to invest in the rural markets covered by these licenses."