AT&T, by contrast, probably won't roll out LTE until 2011, Manjaro said. But that company was forceful in its letter to Congress. The terms of new holders' spectrum licenses should be extended by the length of the delay, and if their frequencies are used by others during that term, the licensees should be reimbursed, AT&T said.

Each company pointed out that it paid the government billions last year in an auction for 700MHz spectrum licenses nationwide: In AT&T's case about $6 billion, and in Verizon's case more than $9 billion.