After abandoning $39 billion bid to acquire T-Mobile USA, AT&T has finally received some good news. U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved the sale of Qualcomm's Lower 700 MHz D and E Block (Channel 55 and 56) unpaired U.S. spectrum licenses to AT&T. The sale by Qualcomm to AT&T of the licenses for $1.925 billion was originally announced in December, 2010.

Earlier AT&T had indicated that, as part of its longer term 4G LTE network plan, it intends to deploy this spectrum as supplemental downlink, using carrier aggregation technology. This new technology is designed to deliver substantial capacity gains by enabling unpaired spectrum to be used in conjunction with paired spectrum for 4G services.

"This spectrum will help AT&T continue to deliver a world-class mobile broadband experience to our customers," said Bob Quinn, senior vice president-Federal Regulatory, AT&T.