Last year, EchoStar sold off most of its spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX for $40 billion. EchoStar was in dire financial straits and so it shipped off to AT&T its mid-band 3.45GHz airwaves along with its low-band 600MHz spectrum. The carrier already deployed the mid-band spectrum in November, allowing AT&T to boost 5G download speeds by as much as 80%.
EchoStar’s Boost Mobile can not be the fourth facilities-based wireless provider in the U.S.
SpaceX received 40 MHz of AWS-4, 10 MHz of AWS-H Block, and 15 MHz of unpaired AWS-3 spectrum. It will use the mid-band airwaves it receives for its direct-to-device (D2D) network. The FCC approved both transactions last week.
The deals ended Boost Mobile’s chance to become the fourth facilities-based wireless provider, a label that the FCC placed on Dish Network after it bought Boost, allowing T-Mobile to buy Sprint. You see, the FCC wanted the U.S. to continue with four facilities-based providers (which are wireless firms that owns its own network and wireless infrastructure), and hoped that Dish would replace Sprint.
Boost is now a hybrid MVNO and its customers use the AT&T network
Boost is now considered a hybrid MVNO using its own 5G core and AT&T‘s network. Frankly, it appears that we might never get a new fourth facilities-based wireless provider in the U.S.
EchoStar bought Dish Network on the last day of 2023 giving it control of Boost Mobile. Despite building a standalone 5G network and setting up Boost to be one of what would be the “Big 4” in the U.S., people were leaving the provider in droves. From the 9 million subscribers it received from its acquisition of Boost, by last September that number had declined to 7.4 million, a decline of 17.8%.
Boost and Gen Mobile added new wireless customers in Q1, but 89.3% fewer year-over-year
Boost started to add subscribers during the first quarter last year when it and Gen Mobile reported 150,000 new wireless subscribers for EchoStar. While Boost and Gen Mobile continued to add new wireless subscribers during the first quarter of 2026, the number dropped sharply from 150,000 to only 16,000 wireless subscribers from January through March, a decline of 89.3%. That leaves the company with 7.53 million wireless subscribers indicating that Boost has lost more than 1.47 million customers since it was sold to Dish Network.
EchoStar owns 3% of SpaceX. | Image by SpaceX
EchoStar did have a reason for the decline in new wireless subscribers year-over-year. In its 10-Q quarterly filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), EchoStar said that the decline in wireless new subscriber additions was due to the drop in activations from government-subsidized subscribers, and lower gross new wireless subscriber additions.
Part of the reason for the decline in new additions was also blamed on EchoStar’s attempt to sign up higher quality subscribers. EchoStar blames pressure from the FCC as the reason it sold off its spectrum.
EchoStar says it was pressured to sell its spectrum by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr reportedly threatened to take spectrum licenses away from EchoStar and also move up the dates of tests that the FCC required that Dish had to pass in order to meet certain coverage requirements. Moving the dates of these tests closer would have resulted in Dish failing the coverage tests. As a result, it was decided by EchoStar that it might as well sell the spectrum and get some money out of its airwaves before the FCC takes them away.
The filing also mentions that EchoStar is being sued by several tower companies due to its decision to abruptly stop building out its standalone 5G network. The company will be defending itself from lawsuits brought by American Tower, Astound Business Solutions, Comcast Business Communications, Crown Castle, Diamond Towers, Harmoni Towers, SBA Communications and Zayo Group.
While Dish Network and Boost Mobile are not better off now than they were a year ago, EchoStar certainly is. It now owns a 3% stake in SpaceX, which next month will hold the largest IPO in history and that will certainly improve EchoStar’s financials.
EchoStar’s stock has become a proxy for the SpaceX IPO and it has risen by an amazing 523.77% over the last year from $22 to the current price of $137.23.
