Demand for C-band spectrum in the U.S. mobile market was high for a few reasons. Leaving aside for the moment millimeter wave assets, which are important for capacity gains, both Verizon and At&T were far behind T-Mobile in the amount of low-band spectrum--good for coverage--and mid-band spectrum that provides both reasonable coverage and noticeably higher data access speeds.
The C-band auction offered a huge trove of mid-band spectrum (280 MHz) that represents the largest amount of spectrum ever awarded in a single low-band or mid-band auction. Millimeter wave assets are in a different category, as the capacity of frequencies above 6 GHz is an order of magnitude or two orders of magnitude greater than in the low-band, for reasons of physics.
To be sure, as when buying real estate, volume matters. That is why the total amount of C-band spectrum spending will set a record for licensed mobile auctions.
But the C-band also is important for other strategic reasons. As the AWS-3 auction of about 70 MHz of spectrum was key for U.S. 4G, the C-band will underpin U.S. 5G. Aside from T-Mobile, all the other contestants essentially must have significant C-band assets or risk losing the 5G market share battle. Capacity is table stakes, and all the other service providers save T-Mobile needed C-band capacity.
To be sure, the 70 MHz of new Citizens Broadband Radio Service shared spectrum will help. But C-band assets will be foundational in the 5G era, for the same reason capacity is important in the fixed network internet access business. If the market standard shifts to hundreds of megabits per second and then gigabit speeds, every major supplier has to be able to supply such speeds.
It is simply a matter of remaining market competitive.
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