The US FCC has approved AT&T's proposed acquisition of spectrum in the 700MHz band from Qualcomm for USD 1.9 billion. The licences cover more than 300 million people and were previously used to power Qualcomm's Flo TV service. The spectrum will help AT&T expand its mobile broadband coverage, after the company failed to acquire more frequencies through the takeover of T-Mobile USA. The companies expect to close the transaction in the coming days. The deal was first announced a year ago, when AT&T said it plans to use the spectrum as supplemental downlink, using carrier aggregation technology. This new technology is designed to deliver substantial capacity gains by enabling unpaired spectrum to be used in conjunction with paired spectrum for 4G services.
