T-Mobile USA has argued that Verizon Wireless’ attempts to acquire more spectrum through a mooted deal with a consortium of cable companies is unnecessary due to the unused spectrum that it already holds but isn’t using.

In a post on the T-Mobile blog, director of government affairs for technology and engineering policy Steve Sharkey, said Verizon is “attempting to corner the spectrum market” by acquiring one of the last unused blocks of airwaves to create a stockpile.

Sharkey said the deal to acquire the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) licenses in the 1.7 GHz band would “tip the scales in favour of the largest wireless carrier at a critical juncture in the mobile broadband industry.”

Despite repurposing some of its allocation, T-Mobile needs more spectrum to fully deploy LTE across the country, something which is essential to provide effective competition.

Sharkey said it was therefore “no coincidence” that Verizon was moving to purchase the last remaining block of spectrum that could be used by other operators. “The spectrum Verizon is seeking to acquire from the cable companies is uniquely situated to facilitate and expand T-Mobile’s LTE deployment,” he said.

Verizon’s claim that it is two-thirds more efficient than T-Mobile, is flawed for a number of reasons, according to Sharkey, including the fact that it divided its number of subscribers by a national average amount of spectrum, creating “a pointless number.”

Verizon’s calculations also include spectrum that T-Mobile is yet to have access to and fails to factor in that T-Mobile has a higher proportion of data-hungry smartphone customers and that much of Verizon’s spectrum is in frequencies below 1Ghz, which is more efficient than spectrum in higher bands.

Taking all of this into account, Sharkey claims T-Mobile is more efficient than Verizon in 31 of the top-49 US markets. “This is a very different picture than the one Verizon paints for the FCC and the public,” he wrote.

The T-Mobile exec added that the company has historically made use of spectrum as soon as it has been acquired, unlike Verizon which buys spectrum and leaves it idle.

Due to T-Mobile's more efficient use of spectrum and its ability to make use of spectrum for the benefit of consumers immediately, Sharkey said Verizon’s effort “to lock down the last remaining block of currently available LTE-appropriate spectrum” should be denied by the FCC.