As soon as Monday morning, The Wall Street Journal says that DirecTV could announce the acquisition of its rival satellite television content provider Dish Network. For current Dish owner EchoStar, this deal would remove the pressure of having to make some upcoming debt payments. There have been questions about whether Dish Network could make these payments and as such, its ability to continue as a going concern This fear included EchoStar after it purchased Dish Network on the last day of last year.
That deal included the prepaid wireless firm Boost Mobile and the postpaid firm Boost Infinite. Now,
both Boost Mobile operations have merged into one Boost Mobile unit that the FCC is counting on to join
Verizon, AT&T, and
T-Mobile to become one of the four major U.S. wireless providers. Speaking of
AT&T, it is one of DirecTV’s owners along with private equity firm TPG, and the pair hope to benefit by cutting costs with the acquisition of Dish Network. DirecTV will also obtain as part of the deal Sling TV, which is Dish Network’s streaming television brand.
EchoStar co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen was involved in the spinoff of EchoStar’s tech and infrastructure assets in January 2007. That business would be known as EchoStar. The satellite television part of the business became Dish Network. Ergen famously wanted to get involved with wireless so strongly that when
T-Mobile paid $7.9 billion to buy 31MHz of low-band 600MHz spectrum for its upcoming nationwide 5G service at an auction in 2017,
Dish was the second largest spender with over $6 billion in winning bids. At the time, Dish had no reason to bid for the airwaves.
PhoneArena headline from April 15th, 2013 when Dish bid for all of Sprint for $25.5 billion. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Charles Ergen also interjected himself into the big wireless deal of 2013 when he tried to breakup SoftBank’s purchase of Sprint by trying to buy the carrier for Dish Network. Despite a $25.5 billion bid for all of Sprint that he announced in Aptil, 2013, it was SoftBank that acquired most of Sprint. Those shares were later purchased by T-Mobile when the carrier bought Sprint for itsd mid-band 2.5GHz holdingsd in 2020.
Ergen previously tried to merge Dish Network and DirecTV back in 2001 but regulators shot down the plans. Things are different now and the deal will move Dish Network from being in a rather iffy financial position to a stronger one. As for the wireless business that EchoStar will hold onto, the company is losing subscribers. However, this could change with
the combination of both Boost Mobile units into a single unit announced last July.
With an aggressive postpaid plan that promises subscribers new iPhone and Galaxy S models each year, and the launch of its standalone 5G network that will deliver faster and improved 5G service while being able to handle increased 5G traffic, there actually is a reason to be optimistic about EchoStar and its Boost Mobile wireless service if it can jettison Dish Network in the deal expected to be announced Monday.,
