After a quiet July, Capital market activity in publicly traded telecommunications companies in the U.S., Canada and Bermuda bounced back in August, raising about $5.97 billion.

The sector brought in about $5.28 billion from debt offerings and $690 million from preferred security offerings during the month, marking the third-highest monthly total in 2021.

Capital market activity for the sector peaked in March after the Federal Communications Commission's C-band spectrum auction results in February, when Verizon Communications Inc.'s Cellco Partnership spent $45.45 billion, winning 3,511 licenses. AT&T Inc. was the second-biggest spender, paying $23.41 billion for 1,621 licenses.

Overall, March saw $44.31 billion in senior debt offerings and $1.03 billion in common equity offerings. Aside from the March spike, the sector's total capital raises in other months this year did not exceed $9.05 billion.

In total, Verizon raised $31.23 billion from 23 separate offerings to help fund its spectrum purchases.

T-Mobile US Inc. is ranked second for capital raising, with $9.8 billion from nine offerings, including $3.8 billion raised through an offering of its senior notes spread across three tranches. In May, the company launched a private offering to sell another $3 billion of senior notes but its latest offering came in August when it issued another $2 billion of senior notes. The proceeds from the latest offering were planned to be used to redeem debt.

To date, the sector's largest common stock offering, American Tower Corp.'s $2.42 billion raise from 9.9 million common shares, was driven in part to finance its €7.7 billion acquisition of Telxius Telecom SA from Telefónica SA.

Integrated telecommunications services companies raised the most among the broader telecom sector for the year to date, bringing in $49.24 billion in aggregate, followed by wireless telecommunication services companies, with $13.42 billion and alternative carriers, with $10 billion.