Anterix inks 900 MHz spectrum deal worth more than $102 million with Texas utility Oncor

Anterix recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Oncor Electric Delivery Company to sell the Texas utility 900 MHz spectrum licenses for total payments of $102.5 million, including $44 million that will be paid within the next 12 months.

Chris Guttman-McCabe, the chief regulatory and communications officer for Anterix, said the Oncor deal marks the seventh 900 MHz spectrum agreement that Anterix has reached with a utility, and it is the third one with a utility that provides service within the state of Texas.

“This is a big one for us, for a host of reasons,” Guttman-McCabe said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We’re very excited to keep the drumbeat going and get our seventh customers. We now have about 80% of the counties in Texas under 900 MHz contracts”

In addition to Oncor, Anterix also has agreements with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and Xcel Energy—two other utility companies that operate in Texas, according to Guttman-McCabe.

“Those three make up a little more than 200 of the 250 counties in the state of Texas,” he said.

Anterix holds licenses to a 3×3 MHz swath of 900 MHz spectrum that the FCC has approved to be used as airwaves that can support 4G LTE private networks. To date, Anterix has signed deals with utilities making the frequencies available either through a spectrum lease or as a spectrum-license sale.

Guttman-McCabe said the Oncor deal marks the third time that Anterix has reached an agreement that calls for a spectrum-license sale to a utility (LCRA and San Diego Gas & Electric are the others)

“We will secure the licenses and then transfer the licenses to Oncor,” Guttman-McCabe said.

Oncor is expected to pay $44 million to Anterix within the next 12 months and the remaining portion of the $103.5 million total by the end of March 2026, according to a press release about the deal.

Dallas-based Oncor plans to use the 900 MHz broadband spectrum to “support Oncor’s deployment of a private LTE network designed to provide a host of capabilities, including grid awareness, overall communications, and operational intelligence that are expected to enhance resilience and spur innovation,” the press release states. “Oncor’s pursuit of a private LTE network highlights the benefits of this technology throughout the entire utility space.”

Guttman-McCabe said that the other six Anterix utility customers have begun work deploying their private 900 MHz networks this year.

Anterix expects to close many more deals with utilities in the future, according to Guttman-McCabe.

“We are actively working with the majority of investor-owned utility companies in the country,” he said. “Aside from the seven [utilities that already have contracts with Anterix], we’ve got another 18 that we’ve identified as having demonstrated an intent to move forward with us … We’ve got another 50 behind them that we’re talking to, as well.”

While the Oncor deal is described as a spectrum-license sale, Guttman-McCabe said that Anterix is not merely a “spectrum company,” noting that Anterix also boasts a robust ecosystem of partner companies that provide a variety of solutions.

“We have been much more than a spectrum speculator from the beginning,” Guttman-McCabe said. “That’s probably most embodied in the non-spectrum work that we’ve done in building our active ecosystem, which now has 115 companies that are building products and services for utilities on 900 MHz.”