Verizon and regional carrier Cincinnati Bell have jointly announced that the nation’s largest carrier will purchase Cincinnati Bell’s spectrum assets in the AWS and PCS bands worth a combined $210 million.
While the purchase is being announced today, the deal is not expected to close until much later in the second fiscal half of the year, as Cincinnati Bell will begin to wind down its mobile service business, first by leasing the spectrum back from Verizon for a period of 8-12 months to continue to service its current customer base, then simultaneously transitioning its customer base to other carriers and Verizon as Cincinnati Bell’s network is a 3G HSPA+ network and is currently incompatible with Verizon’s CDMA/LTE network.
“We appreciate the loyal support from our Cincinnati Bell Wireless customers over the last sixteen years, and we remain committed to providing them with wireless service and support throughout the transition period. It has become economically challenging for us to invest in our wireless business at the levels necessary to deliver best-in-class service to our customers.” said current Cincinnati Bell President and CEO Ted Torbeck of the purchase deal earlier today in a prepared statement.
More specifically, Verizon is the clear winner in this transaction as it gains 50 MHz of spectrum in the Cincinnati area and 40 MHz in Dayton, Ohio, with licenses in the aforementioned 1.7/2.1 GHz and 1.9 GHz bands.
