T-Mobile USA Buys Additional Radio Spectrum

NextWave Wireless has sold a portion of its AWS license portfolio, representing 63% of its total AWS MHz-pops, for a total of $150.1 million. Four companies brought chunks of spectrum, although T-Mobile took the bulk of it.

Subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission, the agreements call for NextWave to sell 599 million MHz-pops of AWS spectrum at an average price of $0.25 per MHz-pop. The company's cost basis in the licenses being sold is $75.2 million or $0.126 cents per MHz-pop. After the sale, the company will possess 348 million MHz-pops of AWS spectrum primarily in New England, Florida and California. NextWave acquired all of its AWS licenses for a total of $115.5 million, or $0.12 per MHz-pop, at an FCC auction held in 2006.

"The sale of our AWS spectrum is just the first step in maximizing the value of our spectrum portfolio," said Allen Salmasi, chief executive officer and president of NextWave Wireless. "We will continue to monetize our remaining spectrum assets in the U.S. and are working with Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to achieve our spectrum sale objectives."

NextWave's remaining U.S. spectrum assets include 2.8 billion MHz-pops of 2.3 GHz WCS spectrum, 972 million MHz-pops of 2.5 GHz BRS/EBS spectrum, and 348 million MHz pops of AWS spectrum. In addition the company has 5.9 billion MHz-pops of spectrum in Europe, Canada, and South America.

In April 2008, NextWave announced that it had retained Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to sell its U.S. spectrum assets. The company has also retained Canaccord Adams to sell its Canadian spectrum assets.

Posted to the site on 25th July 2008