AT&T has ramped up its deployment of the mid-band spectrum it acquired from EchoStar earlier this year, with the carrier expanding its deployment of the 3.45 GHz band to nearly 23,000 cell sites.

The carrier only agreed to snap up the spectrum from EchoStar in August as part of a $23 billion transaction.

As part of the deal, AT&T secured approximately 30 MHz of nationwide 3.45 GHz mid-band spectrum and approximately 20 MHz of nationwide 600 MHz low-band spectrum.

According to AT&T in an update today (November 17), its deployment of the spectrum has increased speed and capacity for its customers in more than 5,300 cities across 48 states.

It builds on the carrier's deployment of its 5G Standalone (5G SA) network last month.

“We’ve put EchoStar spectrum to work on our network and customers are already feeling the difference,” said Jeff McElfresh, chief operating officer, AT&T.

“This gives us the runway to expand availability of AT&T Internet Air for consumers and businesses and add even more download speed to our 5G service. We’re setting the bar for what it means to be the best advanced networking company in America.”

AT&T notes that the spectrum will provide additional capacity for streaming, gaming, and AI-powered applications.

The carrier has previously hinted that the acquisition of the spectrum will help it speed up its copper retirement goals. AT&T plans to retire its copper network by 2029 and is undertaking a major fiber build-out across the US, as it aims to deploy fiber to 60 million locations over the next four years.

On top of this, AT&T stated today that the spectrum has also enhanced the 5G network available to first responders' on FirstNet, which is AT&T's public safety network.

EchoStar sold the spectrum as part of its ongoing efforts to resolve the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) inquiries.

It stems back to EchoStar's run-in with the FCC after the regulator's chair, Brendan Carr, said in May that the agency would investigate EchoStar's use of 5G spectrum as the company continues its 5G build-out across the US.

The company has also sold off $17bn worth of spectrum in the AWS-4 and H-block bands to SpaceX.