You are absolutely correct that no regulation prohibits VZW or any
other licensee from controlling both a Cellular license & PCS
license(s) in any given market.  No such prohibition has ever existed,
only the now defunct 45/55 MHz (urban/rural) CMRS spectrum cap
effectively limited the amount of Cellular, PCS, & SMR spectrum that
any one licensee could aggregate in a given area.

When in the process of the BAM-AirTouch-GTE merger, several of the
PrimeCo PCS licenses were divested, as such would have placed VZW at
55 MHz (25 MHz Cellular + 30 MHz PCS) in several MSAs, over the
spectrum cap at the time, VZW typically disaggregated 10 MHz to keep
for itself from the PrimeCo PCS licenses before selling the remaining
20 MHz to AT&TWS, nTelos, or the independent PrimeCo in Chicago,
respectively.

In the later PCS auctions, AT&TWS (or its affiliates) acquired at
least 10 MHz of overlapping PCS spectrum in each of its Cellular
markets, which allowed AT&TWS to overlay GSM/GPRS/EDGE 1900 across all
of its markets, both Cellular/PCS & solely PCS, w/o touching its
IS-136 TDMA/AMPS 800 spectrum.

So, to reiterate, you are entirely in the right that licensees can and
do possess both Cellular & PCS licenses in overlapping markets.  But
conditional approval of the Cingular-AT&TWS merger will likely go
above & beyond the minimum regulations facing CMRS licensees.
Anti-trust will play an even larger role.

As agreed upon by most, the overlapping Cellular licenses of
Cingular-AT&TWS will almost certainly prove problematic, thus
requiring divestment.  PCS overlap or Cellular/PCS overlap for
Cingular-AT&TWS is far more of a question mark, possibly prompting no
regulatory fallout whatsoever.  On the latter point, monopolistic
competition more than any spectrum concerns will dictate whether or
not Cingular-AT&TWS will be required to shed any spectrum, networks,
&/or customers in coincident markets.

Therefore, my point in hypothesizing that VZW could be prevented from
attempting to acquire the divested Cellular licenses is that the FCC
very likely could mandate as condition of approval of the merger that
Cingular-AT&TWS sell the affected licenses only to new entrants into
the markets, thereby in those markets preserving the current level of
competition w/ Cingular & AT&TWS as separate competing entities.

In a nutshell, the network-sharing agreement in NYC & California gave
Cingular 10 MHz of T-Mobile's PCS spectrum in NYC and conversely gave
T-Mobile 10 MHz of Cingular's PCS spectrum in California.  Though the
disaggregated blocks of spectrum in each locale are technically now
separate PCS licenses, for all intents & purposes the licenses were
never disaggregated, as the two companies pooled the spectrum together
as part of their infrastructure-sharing arrangement.

In NYC, AT&TWS controls 35 MHz of total CMRS spectrum (Cellular A-side
25 MHz + PCS E 10 MHz).  Cingular possesses only the PCS A3 10 MHz, a
disagg from T-Mobile's PCS A 30 MHz license.

In California, of which we are really only discussing LA & the Bay
Area, AT&TWS controls 35 MHz total CMRS spectrum (Cellular A-side 25
MHz + PCS D 10 MHz) in LA and 45 MHz total CMRS spectrum (Cellular
A-side 25 MHz + PCS D 10 MHz + PCS A5 10 MHz - the last a disagg from
Sprint PCS) in the Bay Area.  Cingular has the upper 20 MHz of the PCS
B 20 MHz license (the PCS B 30 MHz minus the 10 MHz disagg to
T-Mobile) in both LA & the Bay Area.

Cingular, being the former PacBell, the RBOC in California, has a lot
of wireless customers in that state.  All of those Cingular subs are
GSM 1900, none IS-136 TDMA 800, which renders the AT&TWS 25 MHz
Cellular licenses irrelevant for the time being, such that all would
have to crowd into the 10 MHz or 20 MHz of GSM/GPRS/EDGE 1900
bandwidth that AT&TWS possesses.  Even in NYC, where Cingular is a
relatively new entrant to the market, hence has fewer subs, all again
are GSM 1900 users, while AT&TWS once again controls only 10 MHz of
GSM/GPRS/EDGE 1900 spectrum.  By your scenario, in NYC or California,
it is quite unlikely that AT&TWS w/ its current spectrum holdings
could readily absorb all of Cingular's subs.

The following is my potential theory regarding T-Mobile.  Again an
excerpt from my personal correspondence:

-----Original Message-----
From:    Shepherd, Andrew J
Sent:    Wed 2/18/2004 01:11
To:    (removed)
Cc:   
Subject:    (removed)

"And, here is an interesting potentiality:  Cingular-AT&TWS could
presumably opt out of its network-sharing arrangement w/ T-Mobile in
NYC & California.  AT&TWS brings at least 35 MHz if not 45 MHz of
combined Cellular/PCS spectrum to the table in each of NYC, LA, & SF.
In but a New York minute, Cingular-AT&TWS suddenly gains the upper
hand on T-Mobile in NYC.  The disaggregated 10 MHz blocks of PCS
spectrum that Cingular transferred to T-Mobile in California and
T-Mobile in turn traded to Cingular in NYC, respectively, are
permanent swaps.  But Cingular-AT&TWS will no longer need the T-Mobile
infrastructure in NYC.  T-Mobile will lose all leverage in California,
hence Cingular-AT&TWS could tell T-Mobile to get lost and go build its
own California network."

On that last point, T-Mobile, which is truly the odd man out now,
needs to find a merger partner ASAP.  The problem is that either
Cingular or AT&TWS were far & away the two most obvious candidates,
leaving T-Mobile the redundant third wheel, like the wallflower w/o a
dance partner.  Nextel needs a way out of the iDEN deadend, while its
interleaved SMR 800 spectrum is far better suited to GSM than to CDMA,
such that Nextel & T-Mobile could be the next pair down the aisle.

Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
cinema@ku.edu
cinema@sprintpcs.com
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/

John...

Your eyes did not deceive you.

I really would love to document AT&TWS' &/or Cingular's PCS holdings,
just as I have already done for Sprint PCS & VZW, w/ my ALLTEL PCS map
soon-to-be published this weekend.  Thus, I am certainly considering
undertaking both AT&TWS & Cingular PCS spectrum maps.  Unfortunately,
due to the inordinate number of PCS licenses - at least six per market
compared to typically only two for Cellular - such a task would
require probably a week's worth of effort scouring the FCC's ULS
database.  The GSM Corridor transfers, disaggregations, & partitions
between or from the parent companies to the Roadrunner subsidiaries
only further complicate the matter, though I suppose such distinctions
between AT&T Wireless Roadrunner License Sub & Roadrunner Cingular
License Sub will soon be largely academic.

Anyway, it is indeed my goal to author licensed PCS (1900 MHz) maps
for both AT&TWS & Cingular to complement the combined Cingular-AT&TWS
Cellular (800/850 MHz) map for a completely detailed spectral portrait
of the merged carrier.  The only question is whether or not I can
spare the time.

Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
cinema@ku.edu
cinema@sprintpcs.com
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/

That's a license area map, not a coverage map.  There are vast areas on
that map that have no Cingular/ATTWS coverage.  Also, that map does not
differentiate between cellular and PCS licenses.  Many PCS licenses are
very sparsely built out to this date.