T-Mobile US chief executive John Legere this week hit out at AT&T and Verizon for lobbying the FCC over the forthcoming 600-MHz auction, in a bid to put more spectrum in their own hands and leave less for smaller players.
"They are swarming the five FCC officials who will make these auction rules and trying to strong-arm them into looking the other way while they continue to bulldoze American wireless consumers," Legere claimed in a video blog on Thursday.
"They just want to jack up your bill and line their pockets," he said, pledging to reduce costs for consumers should T-Mobile succeed in winning spectrum that would enable it to boost its presence in rural areas.
In many rural locations customers are only able to choose between AT&T and Verizon for mobile service, largely due to previous spectrum allocations that have left the big two with "an unfair structural advantage," he said.
"If we can steal just 15% of the [rural] market from AT&T and Verizon we will save consumers money and put $1 billion back into consumers’ pockets," Legere insisted.
While he accuses the market leaders of "swarming" the FCC on this issue, Legere can hardly deny that he has undertaken a fair amount of lobbying himself in recent months.
T-Mobile US is part of a pressur e group called Save Wireless Choice that is campaigning for the FCC to make certain decisions with regard to the 600-MHz auction, or incentive auction, as it is also known. The group also includes Sprint, Dish Network and other operators and public interest bodies.
The group has two main aims: to make sure the 600-MHz auction happens on schedule in early 2016, and to encourage the FCC to reserve 40 MHz, or at least half of the available spectrum, for smaller players. At present, the FCC is minded to reserve 30 MHz.
The FCC is due to set out its auction rules next month.
The 600-MHz sale will be "the last government auction of low-band spectrum we’ll see for decades," Legere warned.
"We want and need more low-band spectrum," he said.
