XO Communications agreed in February that it would sell its fibre business to Verizon for $1.8 billion and at the same time lease its millimetre-wave spectrum to the company. The leasing deal includes an option for Verizon to buy the spectrum at the end of 2018.
Analysis by Allnet Insights & Analytics suggests that the spectrum leasing deal will give Verizon 180 billion MHz-POPs across the two frequency bands that it is taking over.
Most of the coverage, 158 billion MHz-POPs, comes from the LMDS A frequency band, says Allsight, with 16 billion from the LMDS B frequency band, and nearly 4 billion from the 39 GHz frequency band.
Allsight uses data from Future Holdings in its analysis. Of the top 20 markets in the US, Verizon’s best coverage thanks to the new deal will be in Chicago, Houston, Washington, Minneapolis-St Paul, Baltimore, Seattle and St Louis.
