Qualcomm Inks Spectrum Deal With AT&T


Qualcomm Inc. has announced that, subject to government approval, it is selling its lower 70 MHz D and E block of spectrum (former television channels 55 and 56) to AT&T for $1.925 billion. In the same announcement, the company said that it would be permanently shutting down its FLO TV operations in March 2011.

“This is a positive outcome for Qualcomm and our stakeholders,” said Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chairman and CEO. “Carrier aggregation, supplemental downlink and LTE multicast technologies are an exciting evolution of next generation wireless systems to economically support increasing consumer demand for mobile TV and other rich media content. We will continue to drive the development and delivery of these new capabilities, which build on our technology leadership and deep experience with 3G, 4G and broadcast technologies.”

AT&T announced that it was planning to use the acquired spectrum “as part of its longer-term 4G network plan.”

The deal must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, with additional clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice. The two companies said that they were expecting the sale to be wrapped up during the second half of 2011.