Board Advisor & Corporate Innovator | AI & 6G Infrastructure Strategy | Driving Growth Amid Uncertainty
EchoStar’s Spectrum Flip Rumors of a potential Verizon acquisition of EchoStar’s AWS-3 licences highlight the final stage of a decade-long strategy. Between 2012 and 2021, Dish–EchoStar spent roughly $26 billion acquiring spectrum meant to power a fourth national 5G network. That network never fully materialized. By 2025, EchoStar has sold or is selling licences for roughly $50 billion, generating an approximate 91 percent return. The implied internal rate of return over the holding period is roughly 7 to 8 percent per year. Had they built the network, they would have needed another $30–40 billion in CapEx, with high operational risk. Carriers like AT&T, SpaceX, and potentially Verizon gained spectrum predictably, without bidding against competitors. That predictability came at the expense of the public treasury, raising a broader equity question about who benefits from scarce spectrum. This strategy also illustrates the notion of spectrum as an economic option. EchoStar invested just enough to satisfy the FCC, preserving the option to sell when market conditions were favorable. The payoff demonstrates how illiquid regulatory assets can be transformed into financial windfalls, even without network deployment. The network ambition is over. Boost Mobile is now a thin-margin MVNO. What remains is cash and a stark lesson: strategic optionality can be more valuable than operational execution when the underlying asset is scarce and regulated.
Interesting question is whether this all counts against the FCC's 800MHz target for auctions... or whether the FCC decides to somehow tax it, if it feels it's being deprived of potential auction revenues.