UScellular named AT&T as the buyer for some of its spectrum in an all-cash deal valued at $1 billion following a $4.4 billion arrangement with T-Mobile US in May.

While Verizon struck a $1B deal in October to buy spectrum from UScelluar, the latter stated at the time it entered into agreements with two other mobile operators for additional licence sales.

AT&T is stated as the fourth operator to announce a spectrum deal with UScellular, although the rural operator isn’t revealing the identity of the fourth.

The agreement with AT&T includes the sale of 1,250 million MHz-Pops of 3.45GHz and 331 million MHz-Pops of 700MHz B/C Block bands.

AT&T stated the future deployment of the former UScellular spectrum will increase its “5G wireless network capacity in more than 100 markets across virtually every region of the country.”

UScellular stated some of the licences being sold to AT&T are currently owned by a third party. The sale of those licences to “AT&T is contingent upon UScellular’s purchase, which is pending receipt of regulatory approval, of the equity in the third party that UScellular does not currently own”.

Those licenses cover approximately 15 per cent of the total MHz-Pops in the transaction with AT&T.

UScellular noted “substantially all” of the transaction with AT&T is contingent on UScellular closing its agreement with T-Mobile, which they previously stated could occur by mid-2025.

UScellular president and CEO Laurent Therivel noted after the proposed sales are complete it “will be left with 1.86 billion MHz-Pops of low and mid-band spectrum, as well as 17.2 billion MHz-Pops of mmWave spectrum, with the substantial majority of retained value in the C-band spectrum”.

Telephone and Data Systems (TDS) owns an 83 per cent stake in UScellular, which was the fourth largest US mobile operator prior to selling some of its spectrum. The Carlson family owns the majority of TDS.

The boards of both UScellular and TDS announced in August 2023 they were considering the partial sale of some of the mobile operator’s assets.