Dish Wireless and cell tower firms battle in bankruptcy court
Intercompany loans and prepackaged bankruptcy filings make this a very complicated bankruptcy.
Dish Wireless bankruptcy proceedings continue | Image by EchoStar
Dish Wireless is having a hard time. It's hard to imagine now that the FCC had high hopes that Dish would be the fourth major facilities-based carrier in the US replacing Sprint. At the time, it was important to the FCC to keep four Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) up and running in the States in order to keep prices from rising out of control.
Dish Wireless has had problems since day one
But Dish had trouble attracting customers and despite starting with the 9 million customers it had when Dish bought Boost Mobile, by last September that number was believed to be down to 7.4 million. Later last year, the dream officially ended when Dish parent EchoStar, in the throes of financial difficulties and partly bullied by the FCC, sold most of its spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX. Construction on its standalone 5G network came to a permanent halt.
If you ran Dish, what would you have done differently?
Last month Dish Wireless and Dish DBS filed jointly administered Chapter 11 cases for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sold off its remaining network assets. EchoStar still operates Boost Mobile as a hybrid Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) using AT&T's network infrastructure while using its own cloud-native 5G network. As a result, Boost has full control over its software while it avoids having to maintain cell towers.
Dish is accused of trying to rush a pre-packaged bankruptcy through court
Speaking of cell towers, they are behind some of the big issues that Dish Wireless is facing in bankruptcy court. Tower companies like Crown Castle, American Tower, and SBA Communications want Dish Wireless, and Dish DBS to go through bankruptcy proceedings separately. Dish Wireless is the mobile network part of the company, while Dish DBS is the satellite television and pay-TV unit for EchoStar that actually turns a profit.
Dish Wireless does not appear to have any ongoing operations; rather, it appears to hold legacy liabilities and assets resulting from EchoStar’s decision to sell its spectrum for $42 billion – a $12 billion profit – and abandon its efforts to build out a nationwide 5G network
Crown Castle
Dish wants to combine Dish Wireless and Dish DBS into one pre-packaged reorganization that it can quickly rush through bankruptcy court so it can start fresh. The tower companies want to separate Dish Wireless and Dish DBS and argue that this is a complex bankruptcy case and demand more time for discovery.
The bankruptcy proceedings are extremely complex
Tower company Crown Castle says that this is not a typical pre-packaged bankruptcy and says that there are some intercompany loans that need to be investigated. For example, Crown Castle points out that in August 2025, EchoStar transferred all of Boost Mobile out of Dish Wireless. The transfer, worth billions, was done to "purportedly satisfy, in part, an alleged unsecured intercompany claim that Dish Wireless owed to Dish Network Corporation," claims the tower firm.
The FCC had hopes that Dish Wireless could replace Sprint as the fourth-facilities based mobile carrier. | Image by Dish
The Dish Wireless bankruptcy is undoubtedly complex. Dish has a proposal that would lead to EchoStar making a $300 million bid for assets that technically belong to Dish Wireless' debtors such as radios and antennas placed on structures around the country. To be clear, these assets include some cash and equipment on towers and in the warehouse. The operating assets of Boost Wireless are owned by another EchoStar subsidiary, which is not part of the bankruptcy according to Octus telecom analyst Anton Gorbunov.
Proposal has EchoStar making a $300 million "stalking horse" bid for assets belonging to Dish Wireless debtors
Here's the deal, that $300 million bid would set the floor and would be considered a "stalking horse" bid. If a higher bid comes in, the court will have to consider it. If not, EchoStar will get to buy back these assets. Meanwhile, it's business as usual at Boost Mobile and Gen Mobile as both are still operating, and all remaining customers were moved to AT&T's RAN network a year ago from the Dish Wireless network.
Once the $23 billion spectrum sale to AT&T is closed, the carrier will pay EchoStar for 30 MHz of 3.45GHz mid-band spectrum and 20 MHz of 600MHz low-band spectrum. Dish Network will then hand over a portion of the proceeds to Dish DBS to take care of some intercompany loans made prior to the bankruptcy filing. It also will pay off $2 billion to holders of Dish DBS 7.75% senior notes that were scheduled to mature on July 1st, at par. Other bonds will remain outstanding.
In 2024, EchoStar had other intercompany asset shuffles that moved lucrative pay-TV subscribers and valuable prime wireless spectrum licenses out of Dish DBS, the company responsible for paying the $2 billion Note at maturity. The assets went into a company controlled by Dish Chairman Charles Ergen upsetting the holders of the Note who were worried that the loss of the assets meant that they wouldn't be made whole.
The next hearing is scheduled for July 23.
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