In a significant development, federal regulators approved Verizon’s $1 billion spectrum purchase from Array Digital Infrastructure on Thursday.
Array (formerly UScellular) ranked among the largest wireless carrier in the US ahead of selling its operations to T-Mobile and chunks of spectrum to each of the three major carriers.
The broadband network provider has bought Array’s AWS-3, AWS-1, and PCS licenses covering nearly 8 percent of the US population.
Notably, the Federal Communications Commission approved the Array’s spectrum sale to AT&T, also for $1 billion, and its $4.4 billion sale to T-Mobile that include both its over four million customers and about a third of its spectrum, last year.
Another $103 million spectrum sale to T-Mobile remains pending at the agency.
The major move is similar to previous infrastructure expansions where leading industry players competed with each other for limited spectrum blocks to maintain competitive speeds.
This agreement ensures that Verizon should hold on a powerful portfolio of airwaves as the market shifts toward more data-intensive mobile technologies.
