T-Mobile charged that a Nov. 13 paper by...

T-Mobile charged that a Nov. 13 paper by Mobile Future on spectrum aggregation limits in the TV incentive auction distorts the record. T-Mobile supports limits on how much spectrum any carrier can buy in the auction, a position opposed by Mobile Future. “Mobile Future treats vastly different types of spectrum as if they were of equal value,” T-Mobile said (http://bit.ly/KVMKJE). “The analysis attempts to draw parallels between AT&T’s and Verizon’s dominance of Auction 73, where they won 71.66 percent of the total MHz/POPs auctioned, to Clearwire’s acquisitions of 2.5 GHz spectrum in Auction 86. This analogy overlooks important differences between the large blocks of unencumbered ‘beachfront’ 700 MHz spectrum and the patchwork of 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses, which requires many more sites to provide the same coverage and provides significantly weaker indoor penetration capabilities.” Mobile Future also does not offer a complete view of wireless markets in 2014, T-Mobile said: “Mobile Future’s focus on the changing control of various licenses during the last ten years should not distract from today’s market reality: AT&T and Verizon have gained control of the vast majority of the most valuable wireless spectrum.” Mobile Future fired back. “While the facts in Mobile Future’s paper might be inconvenient for T-Mobile and its parent Deutsche Telekom, there is nothing in their filing that actually refutes them,” Mobile Future said in response. “The study carefully documents the successful history of the Commission’s auction and secondary market reforms and the wide range of beneficiaries of those policies, most especially the American people and the mobile innovators working so hard to meet their wireless needs. T-Mobile has actively participated in the secondary market and also in some spectrum auctions, while staying home for others. That is their right, but those business and network decisions are not the government’s job to make or to fix. Rather than pivoting to seek government advantage, T-Mobile would do better to focus on competing in a free and open market where they seem to be doing quite well without the government’s help."