AT&T's hungry eyes turning toward Leap, Dish or MetroPCS?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/16/att-eyeing-dish-metropcs-leap/

Publicly, at least, AT&T is bursting at the seams as it runs out of space to put all of its customers. The failed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile was all about trying to match (or better) Verizon's reserves of wireless spectrum. Given the FCC's block of LightSquared and stymieing future spectrum auctions for the time being, AT&T needs to make some more purchases (it bought Qualcomm's small slice of the airwaves for $1.9 billion). If the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, there's a whiteboard in Whitacre Tower with Dish, Leap and MetroPCS written all over it. Reportedly, a purchase of Leap is the nearest to fruition, with "under the table" talks already underway. However, the Cricket Wireless operator would only provide a short term solution to Ma Bell's very long term woes. The other big target is Dish Network's reserved spectrum, kept back for its own planned broadband network, but i! f it fai ls to get Government approval, it might look to offload it. Third on the roster and marked as "highly unlikely" is a purchase of MetroPCS. The carrier was bitterly opposed to the T-Mo merger and pouted at the idea of purchasing some of Big Blue's divested assets, so if those two met around a table, they'd have a lot of awkward apologizing to do.

Image courtesy of Fierce Mobile Content

AT&T's hungry eyes turning toward Leap, Dish or MetroPCS? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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