AT&T Touts EchoStar Spectrum Deployment

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2025 – AT&T announced Monday it had turned on new spectrum at 23,000 cell sites since reaching a deal to buy the airwaves from EchoStar in August, which the carrier said was “record fast.” The company touted increased speeds for both its mobile and fixed wireless subscribers.

The deal still needs regulatory approval, but AT&T was able to lease the 3.45 GigaHertz (GHz) airwaves in the meantime. The carrier already uses spectrum in the band for its network, making the process of deploying it largely a matter of remote updates on existing radios.

“This gives us the runway to expand availability of AT&T Internet Air for consumers and businesses and add even more download speed to our 5G service,” AT&T COO Jeff  McElfresh said in a statement.

The company said mobile subscribers could see up to 80 percent faster download speeds, and fixed wireless subs could see a 55 percent speed increase. The new spectrum is online in 5,300 cities across 48 states.

On the company’s third quarter earnings call, AT&T CEO John Stankey said he expected to have 3.45 GHz spectrum deployed “in cell sites covering nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population by mid-November.”

The company didn’t say how the current deployment stacked up to the expected timeline and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“AT&T expects this transaction to support strong and sustained growth in its high-value base of converged customers that subscribe to both its home internet and 5G wireless services,” the company wrote. “In addition, AT&T expects to achieve long-term operating efficiencies as the acquisition of these licenses will reduce the need to boost network capacity through the capital-intensive construction of additional cell sites.”

Extra capacity will allow AT&T to be more aggressive

AT&T added 270,000 fixed wireless subscribers in the third quarter, well above what Wall Street had predicted, for a total of more than 1.2 million. Executives said that with the extra capacity from the EchoStar spectrum, they were planning to be more aggressive in trying to grow the service.

The 3.45 GHz licenses are part of a $23 billion deal in which AT&T would also scoop up EchoStar’s 600 MHz spectrum. AT&T doesn’t already use the latter, so deployment of those airwaves will be a multiyear process involving new radios.

While the extra headroom is a good thing for the company's fixed wireless ambitions, MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett noted last month that even with the EchoStar spectrum, AT&T will have “substantially less excess capacity a year from now as it had three years ago when its initial purchase of 3.45 GHz spectrum closed.”

Like the other carriers, AT&T will be looking to scoop up more airwaves when the Federal Communications Commission holds its next spectrum auction in the upper C-band. The agency will vote on a measure that would seek comment on rules for the auction later this week.

That process is set to conclude by July 2027.