AT&T/T-Mobile merger could blanket Arkansas with 4G

Editor’s note: Roby Brock, with our content partner Talk Business, wrote this report. He can be reached at [email protected]

AT&T Arkansas President Ed Drilling says within 4 years the state could be a blue blanket of next generation 4-G phone coverage.

4-G, or LTE (Long Term Evolution), coverage is the latest cell phone/smart device platform designed to handle wireless data traffic from capital city office complexes to farm fields in the Delta. By some estimates, the new technology could allow for wireless speeds of 100 mbps or greater on smart phones.

Drilling recently told Talk Business that his parent company’s pending $39 billion merger with #4 national telecom provider T-Mobile has benefits far beyond market share.

"T-Mobile in Arkansas is a good company, but they don’t have a very large market share at all," said Drilling, who pegged T-Mobile’s consumer market share in state at around one percent. "What they do have is a huge swath of spectrum that we would use for 4-G in all 75 counties."

Spectrum is the invisible bandwidth needed to carry voice and data traffic through airwaves via cell towers and fiber optic networks. In 2006, the federal government auctioned off valuable 1700 and 2100 MHz spectrum bandwidth previously held for government use. T-Mobile was a big winner in that auction and has used it as a nucleus for its infrastructure build-out.  AT&T wants to take it further.

"If you look at the map of what our build would look like over the next 4 years, if this merger is completed and we’re able to hold on that spectrum, it’s just incredible," Drilling explained.  "We’ll pretty much blanket the whole state from our standpoint with 4-G coverage."

AT&T Arkansas, and in other states, needs that spectrum. Drilling says in Arkansas, his firm has seen an 8,000% increase in data traffic in the past 3 years thanks to the explosive growth of smart phones and applications.

Drilling says it has been a "chore and a challenge" to keep up with customer demand.

"You put that into context: what if you had 8,000 percent growth at the airport or in traffic in the freeway system… it’s a challenge," Drilling admitted.

To learn more about smart phone growth and AT&T Arkansas’ plans to expand coverage, watch the full interview below.