Verizon to conduct open sale of 700MHz A and B spectrum licensing, if it gets the new spectrum it wants

Verizon Wireless has announced today that it plans on conducting an open sale of its 700MHz A and B licenses in order to get rid of spectrum it doesn’t use for LTE and won’t be using for other future products.

Verizon bought the 700MHz A,B and C licenses back in 2008, but is only using the upper C spectrum for its 4G LTE network. It’s looking to purchase more spectrum for that network and will use the C spectrum in conjunction with those potential new acquisition. It’s trying to buy that spectrum from SpectrumCo, which is owned by Comcast, time Warner and Bright House jointly with Cox and Leap. The Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice are still debating whether they want to let Verizon purchase the additional spectrum, and the company has come under opposition from rival network T-Mobile.

Verizon says that it won’t be giving up the A and B spectrum to sale unless it gets the expected approval to make purchases from the chunk of spectrum that is now assigned to the cable networks.

It is likely that Verizon is pre-announcing plans to sell off the 700MHz bands it currently has, but does not use, in order to make its appeal to purchase the new spectrum look more attractive to the regulatory departments looking at the case.

The company just announced yesterday that its LTE network would be covering some 2/3 of the U.S. after expanding in 44 markets and coming online in 27 new markets.