Once Biden signs on the dotted line, T-Mobile will get more 2.5GHz Goldilocks spectrum

You may remember the story. As of September 2022, T-Mobile spent more than $304 million to obtain 7,156 2.5 GHz mid-band licenses in 2,724 counties. TMobile is known for using the 2.5 GHz spectrum it acquired when it purchased Sprint to develop and support its Ultra Capacity 5G service. Although mid-band doesn't offer data upload and download speeds as fast as high-band mmWave, it travels further than mmWave, allowing more subscribers to connect to the signals.

But to date, T-Mobile has been unable to take possession of those licenses because Congress let the FCC's auction authority expire, preventing the regulatory agency from returning the spectrum licenses. There appears to be good news on the horizon for TMobile as the House of Representatives passed Sen. John Kennedy's (R-La.) 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (SALE) on Thursday.

The bill would require the FCC to hand over licenses to TMobile. The Senate passed similar legislation in September. While FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the law prevents her from granting licenses to TMobileFormer FCC leaders, including former Chairman Ajit Pai, signed a letter written to the chairmen of the Energy and Commerce and Commerce, Science and Transportation committees, urging Congress to restore the authority spectrum auction from the FCC as soon as possible to allow TMobile and others to receive the licenses they won at auction.

Following the approval of the House, TMobile Vice President of Legislative Affairs Tony Russo went to “X” to post“The passage of the 5G SALE Act in the House today is a big victory for American consumers. Thank you @RepJohnJoyce for your leadership! The way is now clear for the @FCC to release all @TMobile 2.5 licenses GHz and connects millions of Americans to high-speed Internet.

The bill simply awaits the president's signature to become law. Blair Levin, a policy analyst at New Street Research, said that TMobile has already built towers and radios to use much of the 2.5 GHz spectrum. With the additional waves, TMobile is expected to expand service to more than 50 million people almost immediately while providing home broadband service to 3 million homes.

Levin's note to New Street clients said: “In summary: passage of the legislation is a plus for TMUS (TMobile), a negative for T (AT&T) and VZ (Verizon), and due to [lead to] more home broadband opportunities, likely a negative “for Charter Communications and Comcast.”

Because the characteristics of mid-band spectrum allow it to travel greater distances than high-band mmWave spectrum while providing faster data speeds than low-band spectrum, some call mid-band the “Digital Loop”. 'gold' of wireless waves.