05 November 2024

US Cellular Corporation has entered into an agreement with Verizon Communications (Verizon) to sell a portion of its retained spectrum licenses for a total consideration of US$1.0 billion in cash.

The deal involves Verizon purchasing spectrum licenses in the cellular band, as well as select licenses for spectrum in the cellular, AWS, and PCS bands. The agreement is subject to conditions and potential adjustments, which could occur if court orders prevent the transfer of certain licenses, if regulatory approvals impose burdensome conditions, or if there are changes related to a T-Mobile Short-Term Spectrum Manager Lease.

UScellular agreed to sell Verizon 663 million MHz POPs of its cellular (850MHz) spectrum licenses, as well as 11 million MHz POPs of its AWS and 19 million MHz POPs of its PCS licenses, for a total of US$1.0 billion.

UScellular has also reached agreements to sell a total of 12 million MHz POPs of its spectrum licenses across the CBRS, C-Band, and 700MHz B/C Block bands to two additional mobile network operators.

Each of these transactions is contingent upon the closing of UScellular’s proposed sale of its wireless operations and select spectrum assets to T-Mobile.

Following these transactions, UScellular’s retained spectrum will include 3.4 billion MHz POPs of low and mid-band spectrum (700MHz, 3.45GHz, CBRS, and C-Band), along with 17.2 billion MHz POPs of mmWave spectrum. UScellular will continue to explore opportunities to monetise these retained assets.
The closure of the newly announced deal is subject to regulatory approvals.