Policyband

AT&T Gets FCC OK to Buy Wireless Licenses from UScellular – One Day after Purging DEI from the Company

AT&T is awaiting FCC approval to purchase $23 billion in spectrum from EchoStar

Ted Hearn

Dec 4, 2025 — 12 min read

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Spectrum Sale: The FCC on Wednesday approved the sale of a portion of UScellular’s spectrum licenses to AT&T for about $1.02 billion in cash. Approval by the Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau came a day after the public release of an AT&T letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that the company had ditched diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs. The licenses going to AT&T were part of the spectrum UScellular retained after it sold in July about 30% of its mobile spectrum to T-Mobile. Under the agreement, AT&T is acquiring up to 24 megahertz of Lower 700 MHz spectrum and up to 40 megahertz of 3.45 GHz spectrum in 906 counties in all or parts of 221 Cellular Market Areas covering about 12% of the U.S. population, excluding territories, the FCC said. (More after paywall.)