UScellular will promote a piece of its remaining spectrum belongings to AT&T for just a little greater than $1 billion in money, together with 1,250 million MHz-POPs of three.45 GHz and 331 million MHz-POPs of 700 MHz B/C block licenses.
“We’re happy with the numerous worth that will probably be realized within the varied transactions not too long ago introduced,” stated UScellular President and CEO Laurent Therivel. “This settlement provides a fourth cellular community operator, along with T-Cellular, to the record of these whose subscribers will profit from the sale of our spectrum licenses. As with the opposite cellular community operators, we’re assured that AT&T can put it to productive use in communities all through the U.S. Moreover, the phrases of the settlement will make sure that there will probably be continued, uninterrupted service for UScellular prospects within the interim.”
UScellular stated that the transactions it has introduced up to now with AT&T, Verizon and two different operators, account for about 55% of its spectrum holdings on a per megahertz-POP foundation—excluding its millimeter-wave spectrum. That, plus UScellular’s pending transaction to promote its wi-fi operations to T-Cellular US, implies that the corporate has roughly 30% of its holdings, minus mmWave, left.
“After our proposed gross sales, we will probably be left with 1.86 billion MHz-Pops of low and mid-band spectrum, in addition to 17.2 billion MHz-Pops of mmWave spectrum, with the substantial majority of retained worth within the C-band spectrum,” added Therivel.
“The C-band licenses have a lot of attributes that we consider are favorable to their long-term worth,” he continued. “First, our C-band licenses are positioned in a pretty mid-band frequency that may ship excellent pace and capability. Second, there’s a substantial 5G ecosystem of kit distributors and present infrastructure that makes use of C-band. Lastly, they’ve a prolonged build-out timeline, with first and second build-out dates of 2029 and 2033, respectively. This gives ample time and optionality for us to both monetize or deploy the spectrum sooner or later. We are going to proceed to search for methods to opportunistically monetize the C-band, in addition to the opposite remaining spectrum.”
UScellular’s majority shareholder, TDS, has already consented to the AT&T spectrum transaction. Like the opposite spectrum transactions, this one is contingent upon the profitable closing of T-Cellular US’ acquisition of UScellular’s wi-fi operations.
UScellular not too long ago reported a continued downward slide in its complete working revenues, service revenues and internet earnings, because it proceeds with promoting belongings and shifting its enterprise into being a telecom infrastructure supplier relatively than a cellular community operator. Nonetheless, Mounted Wi-fi Entry (FWA) buyer base continues to develop, up 32% year-over-year to 140,000.
Therivel advised analysts on the corporate’s quarterly name that UScellular believes that the proposed sale of its wi-fi operations to T-Cellular US is on monitor to shut in mid-2025.
T-Cellular US plans to purchase a portion of UScellular’s spectrum, plus its wi-fi subscribers, operations and community belongings apart from the corporate’s owned towers for about $4.4 billion. UScellular will retain the practically 4,400 towers that it owns, in addition to about 70% of its spectrum and its fairness technique investments together with its wi-fi partnerships, which the corporate stated generated about $158 million in earnings final yr.
UScellular is the fifth largest tower firm in the USA, and this deal would solidify that place. The 2 corporations have stated that they will put collectively a brand new, 15-year grasp lease settlement beneath which T-Mo will grow to be a long-term tenant on a minimum of 2,600 of UScellular’s towers, guaranteeing the corporate an earnings stream for years to return. T-Cellular US is already a tenant on about 600 of UScellular’s towers, and it’ll grow to be a tenant on a minimum of one other 2,105 websites after the deal.
Individually, UScellular struck one other cope with Verizon to promote a few of its remaining spectrum for about $1 billion. The spectrum cope with Verizon would contain the nationwide provider shopping for 663 million megahertz POPs of UScellular’s 850 MHz spectrum licenses, in addition to 19 million MHz POPs of its PCS licenses and 11 million MHz POPs of its AWS airwaves, for a complete consideration of $1 billion.
T-Cellular US, in the meantime, will decide up nearly all of UScellular’s 700 MHz A block, AWS and PCS airwaves plus all of USM’s 600 MHz, 2.5 GHz and 24 GHz spectrum, if the acquisition transaction is authorised.
