When America’s wireless workers and infrastructure firms signed up to build EchoStar’s 5G network, they weren’t taking a bet on Charlie Ergen. They were answering a call from Washington.
DISH as a nationwide, facilities-based wireless carrier was the regulatory price of the Department of Justice (DoJ) under the first Trump administration, approving T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint in 2019 — the largest wireless merger in history. And DISH’s open radio access network (ORAN) was meant to help counter Huawei’s dominance and rebuild American telecom equipment manufacturing.
Over the past few years, however, DISH apparently decided that speculating on spectrum was more profitable and desirable than fulfilling these national imperatives — and the company’s binding buildout commitments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Understandably, the FCC has signaled a willingness to let DISH sell its spectrum assets to companies that will actually use them. But in the process of cashing out, DISH wants to stiff the workers and companies that built its network and operated in good faith toward national goals.
Who will be left holding the bag?
Given the role that Washington played in propping up and promoting DISH’s 5G “ambitions,” the FCC has the authority to ensure those workers aren’t left holding the bag by requiring that DISH set aside an escrow so that infrastructure companies can pursue claims related to unpaid debts.
It’s worth recalling how hard Washington pushed DISH as both a competitive necessity and a geopolitical priority.
The company made binding, enforceable commitments to the FCC and DoJ to build a nationwide network using all of its spectrum.
Congress allocated $1.5 billion in ORAN funding as part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, and Biden’s Commerce Department awarded DISH a $50 million grant to establish an ORAN integration center at DISH’s Wyoming campus. Alan Davidson, who led the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, traveled to Las Vegas to announce the grant at a DISH Open RAN cell site, praising DISH for its “long-standing commitment to open networks” and declaring that the company “led the industry in championing open 5G networks.”
And while the Biden Administration was publicly praising the company, its FCC was accommodating its failure to meet buildout obligations. In September 2024, the agency’s Wireless Bureau quietly pushed DISH’s June 2025 buildout deadline to December 2026, with final construction milestones extended from 2026 to June 2028. Then-Commissioner Carr called it a “backroom deal” and “the worst abuse of agency process” he had seen in his twelve years at the FCC.
For years, the U.S. government loudly signaled to the country and its wireless builders that DISH was a national priority. Quietly, the government told DISH that consequences for missing its deadlines would be muted or nonexistent. Even if contractors got that second memo, it was too late to back out.
Tower companies sign 10- to 30-year leases because FCC buildout requirements are supposed to be stringent, giving mobile carriers a strong disincentive to fail in their buildout commitments.
Wireless infrastructure companies and their workers operated in good faith, contributing to national goals with the understanding that DISH could face serious consequences if it stopped being serious about building a network. And Chairman Carr deserves credit for applying real scrutiny — and turning the page on the prior FCC’s leniency.
The double-edged spectrum sale sword
In theory, the spectrum sale should be a win for all parties. The FCC gets spectrum into productive hands. DISH gets a payout — however unjustified — and its speculative charade comes to an end. Flush with cash, DISH has plenty of funds to pay its debts.
But rather than do the right thing, DISH is citing the very FCC process that may enrich the company as justification to reneging on its financial obligations. The company is making dubious “force majeure” claims related to routine FCC scrutiny of its buildout milestones.
Telecom analyst Craig Moffett put it plainly in a research note: “Perhaps foolishly, we assumed that EchoStar, now flush with cash, would actually pay its bills. Silly us.”
EchoStar, Moffett added, “has not-so-subtly threatened to bankrupt its own subsidiary, Dish Wireless LLC, in order to shelter the parent company’s cash from the liabilities incurred in EchoStar’s erstwhile effort to build a wireless network.”
The FCC has a narrow window and a narrow tool to keep this from becoming a cautionary tale for every future wireless entrant’s contractors. It shouldn’t be asked to block or delay the AT&T and SpaceX transfers. The spectrum should get into productive hands.
What should the FCC do?
What the FCC should do is condition approval of the pending transfers on EchoStar placing a portion of transaction proceeds in escrow. That’s well within the commission’s longstanding authority to impose public interest conditions on license transfers and ensure there’s money left to recover.
Once the sale closes, the FCC’s leverage disappears into the subsidiary shell EchoStar has built for exactly this purpose.
Tower crews showed up when Washington asked them to. Washington can make sure they aren’t the one paying for its change of heart.
Evan Swarztrauber is Principal at CorePoint Strategies, a technology and telecommunications policy consulting firm. Previously, he served as a policy advisor at the Federal Communications Commission.
Opinion pieces from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff do not necessarily represent the opinions of Fierce Network.