Approval is no surprise after FCC chair pressured EchoStar to sell licenses.
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved EchoStar’s sales of spectrum licenses to AT&T and Starlink operator SpaceX. The deals are worth $40 billion in total.
The orders, issued by the agency’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Space Bureau, aren’t surprising given that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr essentially forced EchoStar to sell the licenses. Last year, Carr threatened to revoke the licenses after SpaceX alleged that EchoStar subsidiary Dish Network “barely uses” the spectrum to provide mobile service to US consumers.
Dish had obtained a deadline extension for its network deployment obligations from the Biden-era FCC, and Carr objected to the agreement made with the previous administration. After Carr’s threat, the Charlie Ergen-led EchoStar struck deals to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX for $17 billion and to AT&T for $23 billion.
AT&T is set to acquire 30 MHz of nationwide spectrum licenses in the 3.45 GHz band and 20 MHz in the 600 MHz band, giving it new options for both mid-band and low-band spectrum in its 5G and fixed wireless networks. SpaceX is buying 65 MHz of nationwide spectrum licenses in a few chunks between 1.695 GHz and 2.2 GHz, which it can use to boost the Starlink satellite mobile service that is available for T-Mobile phones.
