Last month we noted how some analysts on Wall Street have gotten the press to relentlessly push the narrative that with the T-Mobile deal scrapped, AT&T really needs to buy somebody. Since AT&T couldn't get T-Mobile's spectrum, the logic goes, AT&T is on the hunt for somebody else to acquire -- like Dish Network. Both Wall Street analysts and the press seem oddly insistent on ignoring that considering the Qualcom deal and eventually repurposed spectrum, AT&T doesn't need to acquire anyone. AT&T own data shows they didn't even really need T-Mobile's assets to reach uniform LTE coverage to begin with.
Yet here we are, a week later, with Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner convincing Bloomberg to run yet another stock-pumping story based on the premise that AT&T oh-my-god-needs-to-buy-someone-for-spectrum-or-the-world-ends story:
AT&T wants to get more spectrum, Roger Entner, a Recon Analytics analyst in Dedham, Massachusetts, said in a telephone interview. They are a year behind Verizon in the LTE race. Dish would undoubtedly be a good combination and it would solve a lot of AT&T s problems."
Nowhere does Bloomberg note that AT&T has plenty of spectrum, squats on more spectrum than nearly any other company, never needed T-Mobile to complete their LTE deployment, and will have plenty of spectrum for the next decade if they use existing spectrum efficiently. Alongside anti-competitive concerns, these are reasons why the government rejected the deal. You'd think that the fact AT&T doesn't really need more spectrum would be important to mention in a story about AT&T needing spectrum. Instead, Bloomberg seems happy to pump a decade-old unfounded Dish acquisition rumor on command.read comment(s)