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T-Mobile's Plan B Is Probably the Cable Industry
T-Mobile Needs Spectrum, Cable Industry Has it

AT&T is trying to salvage their plan to acquire T-Mobile by proposing an alternative that involves offloading assets to a smaller company like MetroPCS. With AT&T's political cash and muscle it remains likely the deal still goes through, but should it fail -- T-Mobile could be making close friends with the cable industry.

Sprint is building their own LTE network and the future of the current cable-industry BFF, Clearwire, remains in flux. Meanwhile, companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable currently hold ample spectrum that T-Mobile would need in a future that doesn't involve AT&T. As such, a cable industry T-Mobile hookup is what Sanford Bernstein analysts are predicting in a research note to investors this week:
quote:
In a report issued Friday, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Inc. analysts Robin Bienenstock and Craig Moffett note that Comcast and TW Cable together hold a 20MHz block of the 1,700/2,100MHz Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum that covers about 80 percent of the U.S., and it happens to be the kind of capacity that "would drop neatly and easily into T-Mobile's existing towers." Considering T-Mobile's near-term spectrum issues and the fact that auctions are still well out on the horizon, "a deal with Comcast and Time Warner Cable for spectrum therefore looks appealing and is very likely the principal Plan B. Or, if you will, the new Plan A," the firm notes.
The analysts also note this would be a way for the cable industry to dodge the FCC's complaints that the cable industry is sitting on a lot of unused spectrum. As we've noted previously, companies like Cablevision have filed merger complaints with the FCC stating that they'd like to strike a deal with T-Mobile, but that AT&T ownership would make that all-but impossible. Again though, the question is what happens to Clearwire; that's a question everyone has been asking a lot lately.