The press has been full of recent headlines saying that EchoStar is finished as the fourth facility-based cellular network. EchoStar announced that it is selling 50 MHz of low and midspan spectrum to AT&T for $23 billion, to close in mid-year 2026. The spectrum being sold includes a 20 MHz swath of 600 MHz and a 30 MHz chunk of 3.45 GHz.

Over the weekend, it was announced that EchoStar sold 50 MHz of its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum to Space X for $17 billion to use for Starlink’s direct-to-cell service that will launch with the next generation of satellites. Exchostar’s Boost cellular customers will get access to that new service when it’s launched.

As a reminder, the EchoStar merged with DISH Networks and started using the brand name EchoStar for the cellular business. DISH Networks was promoted by the FCC to become a new nationwide cell carrier when the FCC approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. DISH raised billions of dollars and started down the path of building a nationwide cell network. In doing so, DISH chose the interesting path of using open RAN electronics, which it believed would be more flexible and cost less than the electronics used by the other big cell companies.

DISH has been fighting for years to keep control of large swaths of spectrum. In addition to the spectrum being sold, the company holds 200 MHz, 700 MHz, and 1.7 GHz spectrum. The company had a hard time justifying all of the spectrum since as of May of this year, the company only had 1.25 million customers riding its own cellular network. The company was under investigation from the FCC for holding unneeded spectrum, but these sales should quiet that issues. EchoStar recently announced that it plans to launch a satellite constellation to compete for cellular service some of its AWS spectrum.

Echostar has been struggling financially, and recently averted a Chapter 11 filing when it was late in making a scheduled debt payment on July 1, but was able to do so before the 30-day grace period.  For those not familiar with the history of DISH Network, the largest stockholder is Charlie Ergen. He’s been adept over the years at finding ways to get out of threatening financial binds.

Echostar will continue to operate its other subsidiaries which include Dish TV, online platform Sling, and Hushes high-orbit satellite.

The timing of the spectrum sales is interesting because the company was finally making some headway in the cellular industry. When EchoStar announced its 2Q 2025 financial results, the big surprise was the continued growth of new cellular customers for the Boost Mobile brand. Echostar saw net growth of 212,000 customers for the quarter, up from 150,000 in the first quarter. This back-to-back growth is surprising since the company was losing customers a year earlier. Boost Mobile had 9 million customers when the company was first purchased, and had slipped to a low of 7.4 million customers.

As the headline says, this sale means the death of the EchoStar cellular network. The company discussed how it will try to sell off or scrap the assets.

The second quarter net growth for all of the major cellular carriers is as follows:Readers who haven’t seen a chart of cellular customer growth might be surprised to see how well Comcast and Charter are doing. It seems like both companies are putting a lot of emphasis on cellular growth to help offset the continued losses of broadband customers. The Verizon numbers might look dismal, but both Charter and Comcast largely ride the Verizon cellular networks with resold MVNO arrangements.

The sale of spectrum to AT&T is not good news for cable companies since AT&T said it would use the spectrum, in part, to expand its FWA home cellular business. AT&T was late to the game in launching FWA, and had 1 million customers at the end of the second quarter, compared to 5.1 million for Verizon and 7.3 million for T-Mobile.