Verizon (Vodafone JV) Get Massive Spectrum Increase

I an announcement today the FCC has allowed Verizon to buy a big chunk of airwaves from cable operators to increase its ability to handle expected increases in mobile data traffic and improved roaming. See below. This is significant from more than one viewpoint. First Vodafone owns half of Verizon and gets a lot of profit from them (see earlier posts), but second Dragonwave may well benefit from any backhaul rollout.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously to approve Verizon Wireless 's proposed purchase of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum from four cable operators and two other spectrum-related transactions with Leap Wireless International Inc. (Nasdaq: LEAP) andT-Mobile USA .

All told, Verizon Wireless is set to receive AWS from the joint venture of Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) and Bright House Networks , as well as from Cox Communications Inc. Verizon Wireless is also to swap some spectrum with Leap, and assign some AWS licenses to T-Mobile. (See T-Mobile: We Need Verizon Spectrum to Compete,Verizon, Leap Swap Some Spectrum, MSOs Sell AWS Spectrum to Verizon for $3.6B and VZ Wireless Nabs Cox's AWS Spectrum for $315M .)

The FCC's 5-0 vote and order, released Thursday afternoon, follows an Aug. 16 conditional approval by the U.S. Department of Justice , whose consent decree placed some minor restrictions on the service bundling/commercial agreements between Verizon Wireless and its cable partners.