At the conclusion of the FCC’s Auction 97, AT&T has successfully acquired licenses for a near nationwide contiguous 10x10 MHz block of high-quality AWS-3 spectrum.  As a result of the acquisition, AT&T now covers 96 percent of the U.S. population with high-value contiguous AWS-3 spectrum.

“Growth in our customers’ mobile data usage continues to explode, driven by mobile video traffic. This spectrum investment will be critical to AT&T staying ahead of customer demand and facilitate the next generation of mobile video entertainment,” said John Stankey, chief strategy officer-AT&T.

Mobile data traffic on AT&T’s national wireless network increased 100,000 percent from January 2007 through December 2014.

AT&T will work with network and handset suppliers, and industry standards bodies to deploy the spectrum beginning in the 2017-2018 period, allowing the company to stay ahead of strong growth in mobile Internet traffic. AT&T anticipates putting this spectrum into service as a supplemental downlink to deliver additional mobile Internet capacity and better performance for its customers. AT&T will work with the FCC, NTIA, DOD, and other federal agencies to also support uplink capacity as soon as possible.

AT&T’s winning bids for this spectrum totaled $18.2 billion. The spectrum to be awarded to AT&T includes 57 percent of MHz POPs covered by the valuable J-block of AWS-3 spectrum. The company will continue to focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet but expects that with this spectrum investment and other pending acquisitions, in the near term it may go above its 1.8x net-debt-to-EBITDA target. The company will use excess cash — after paying its dividend — over the next three years to pay down debt, and expects to return to historical debt ratios.