MetroPCS Hopeful More Spectrum Will Become Available, CFO Says
Getting more spectrum is MetroPCS’s “number one priority,” but the company is hopeful the FCC will make more available starting this year, Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter said Tuesday at the Deutsche Bank conference. “We believe that incentive auctions will be a reality,” he said. “One of the issues is that’s going to take a little longer to develop and the timeline on that is not particularly optimal."
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The appearance was the first since reports surfaced that the company was in talks to be purchased by Sprint Nextel, though Sprint’s board ultimately rejected the deal (CD Feb 28 p2). Braxton didn’t comment.
MetroPCS is “not giving up hope” it could still get some of the AWS spectrum cable operators have proposed to sell to Verizon Wireless, Braxton said, saying MetroPCS opposed the deal in a filing at the FCC. “We are opposed to spectrum hoarders,” he said. Carter also mentioned other spectrum, including Clearwire’s spectrum and Mobile Satellite Service spectrum Dish Network hopes to convert to terrestrial use.
Carter said if the company can buy more spectrum, it would help it control its capital expenditure costs. “It’s not that we can’t continue to grow, it’s that we're having to densify our network, that we're having to accelerate investments, while we don’t have the spectrum,” he said. “To be long term relevant, solving the spectrum equation is very, very important to us.”
Carter warned that Android handsets like those MetroPCS offers subscribers make much bigger demands on the network than the iPhone, which the carrier does not offer. Google’s architecture is very open, which is positive on some levels, he said. But “you have people, literally, building these apps in their garages with no understanding of the delivery mechanisms on a network,” he said. “As a result, they're very, very, very chatty and very few people turn their phones off.”
With the debate intensifying over data caps, Carter said only about 4 percent of subscribers take the company’s $40 plan, which offers the least data per month. Most take either the $50 or $60 plan, he said.