FCC threat to revoke EchoStar spectrum licenses draws widespread backlash
Incompas, a communications industry trade group, said that revoking the deadline extension “would undermine regulatory certainty and threaten to disrupt ongoing investments in advanced network infrastructure, including EchoStar’s important work to integrate Open RAN and satellite capabilities.”
EchoStar, SpaceX, and VTel Wireless each submitted one last filing on Friday. SpaceX urged the FCC “to ensure that valuable spectrum resources are not allowed to remain fallow but instead are made available to those who would put them to productive use to provide advanced services to consumers across the United States.”
VTel Wireless, which was outbid by Dish in auctions for spectrum licenses, said that “nothing prevented EchoStar from meeting its final buildout deadlines; it simply made the business decision not to do so, at least until it faced the loss of its licenses. Under the circumstances, the Commission should investigate EchoStar’s conduct in seeking an extension of its final buildout deadlines.”
EchoStar in financial trouble
EchoStar said that a reversal “would unlawfully discriminate against EchoStar by treating it materially differently, and indeed much worse, than similarly situated entities,” and “would be a sharp and discriminatory departure from the thousands of license extensions the Bureau granted in the last two administrations—often without conditions, without public notice, and with a mere stamp grant.”
EchoStar’s financial stability is threatened by the FCC proceeding, as the company last week announced it would skip debt-interest payments that were due on June 2. EchoStar said it made the decision “in light of the uncertainty raised by the Federal Communications Commission review.”
There is a 30-day grace period before a default. “EchoStar has elected not to make the Interest Payments to allow time for the FCC to provide the relief requested in our FCC filing prior to the expiration of the 30-day grace period,” the company said. The Wall Street Journal article on EchoStar’s potential bankruptcy filing said the firm “has skipped about $500 million in debt-interest payments in recent days, starting a countdown that would push the company into default before July if not cured within the bonds’ grace period.”
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