Tower Companies Not Letting up on Push for EchoStar Deal Conditions
The Wireless Infrastructure Association made its case to the FCC’s top lawyer.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2026 – Tower and infrastructure companies are not letting up in their push for the Federal Communications Commission to ensure EchoStar uses some spectrum sale proceeds to pay its subsidiary’s bills.
A group of executives from more than 40 companies and trade groups penned another letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Thursday (Feb. 19) to make their case again for the agency to tack that condition on to any future approval of EchoStar’s over $40 billion in spectrum deals.
“Eroding confidence in the use of long-term agreements will increase capital costs, slow deployment, reduce the likelihood of new facilities-based competitors, and ultimately harm consumers,” they wrote. “These impacts cannot be remedied after the fact by the [FCC] – they require FCC action prior to approval of the spectrum transactions.”
Dish, EchoStar’s subsidiary that operates its Boost Mobile brand, has been telling business partners that it is no longer bound by the contracts the tower companies are looking to enforce. The company has said EchoStar’s sales were effectively forced by FCC pressure – Carr did not think EchoStar’s spectrum was being put to good use – and that it won’t receive any of its parent company’s proceeds, leaving it unable to meet its obligations through no fault of its own.
EchoStar is planning to decommission its 5G network as part of the deal and operate Boost Mobile largely on AT&T’s infrastructure. It’s setting up a new arm called EchoStar capital to manage the sale proceeds.
There’s a lot of money at stake. On the company’s Tuesday earnings call, American Tower CEO Steve Vondran said Dish owed the company $200 million per year on a contract that ran through 2035. That would put Dish’s default at more than $2 billion in total.
Crown Castle has already said Dish defaulted on $3.5 billion in owed payments, causing the company to accelerate layoffs amid an already ongoing restructuring.
Both companies, along with at least four other business partners, are suing Dish over the issue. They claimed the FCC didn’t explicitly order EchoStar’s action, and that EchoStar was simply not paying its subsidiary’s bills after a lucrative deal.
Also on Thursday, Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Patrick Halley and others met with Adam Candeub, the FCC’s top attorney, to argue the agency should “encourage EchoStar and DISH to reach a reasonable settlement with the affected infrastructure providers before the transactions are approved.”
That should include all “impacted infrastructure providers,” regardless of whether they’re suing Dish, WIA wrote in an ex parte filing after the meeting. The group reiterated the agency should require EchoStar to set aside some of the proceeds for the purpose of paying that settlement.
“To ensure any settlement is paid or, if there is no settlement, that sufficient funds are available to satisfy judgments in any litigation, the [FCC] has authority to condition its approval of the spectrum sales on EchoStar’s establishment of an escrow,” the group wrote. “The escrow would be funded by sale proceeds in an amount sufficient to meet these requirements. This condition avoids case-by-case adjudication while ensuring money is available if/when obligations are confirmed.”
EchoStar has argued the FCC has no authority to impose conditions on it, since EchoStar is divesting rather than acquiring an agency-regulated license. Imposing conditions on the company as part of any approval would “would improperly expose former licensees to continued [FCC] oversight, unbound from any statutory authority, solely by virtue of their former licenses,” the company wrote.
The WIA representatives countered that the agency has previously required the establishment of an escrow in approving previous deals, including “to pay a seller’s potential liabilities” and “even to ensure that a license sale couldn’t be used to escape potential financial liabilities to the [FCC] itself.”
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