AT&T buys high-frequency spectrum licenses • 11:34 AM

• AT&T ( T ) is acquiring 49 spectrum licenses residing in the high-frequency (urban-friendly) AWS band from private Aloha Partners for an undisclosed sum. The licenses cover nearly 50M people in 14 states. ( PR )


• The purchase follows AT&T's 2013 deals to acquire Leap Wireless (also owns valuable high-frequency spectrum) and Allied Wireless (owns a mixture of high- and low-frequency spectrum), and to purchase $1.9B worth of spectrum from Verizon.


• AT&T has been aggressively adding to its spectrum portfolio to deal with soaring mobile data traffic , particularly in major metro areas. The FCC, for its part, has provided less scrutiny of AT&T and Verizon's purchases of spectrum in high-frequency bands, where Sprint and T-Mobile have considerable assets, than purchases involving lower-frequency bands.

........Seeking Alpha update