Tag Archives: EchoStar

A Rural Cellular Story

I was looking through the FCC cellular map in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where I live. For those not fully familiar with the FCC broadband maps, the agency publishes two maps: the more familiar one that shows broadband coverage and a second that shows cellular coverage. You can toggle between the two maps at the FCC’s map website.

It struck me while looking at the details in the maps that rural cellular coverage is changing, and not in a good way. I started by looking at a small section of the county that is on the outer fringe of where the Asheville outer suburbs turn rural. According to the FCC cellular map, the area I selected has the following cellular coverage:

These two tables tell me the following:

  • AT&T and Verizon have some 4G coverage. But the Verizon coverage is likely very weak since they don’t claim it will work in a moving vehicle. While AT&T claims its 4G coverage will work in a moving vehicle, it’s curious that AT&T doesn’t have 5G. This tells me that the AT&T signal is also likely weak since it is outside the 5G coverage area.
  • The only carrier claiming relatively solid 5G (35/3 Mbps) is Project Genesis, which is EchoStar. The company has exited the facility-based cellular business and is in the process of dismantling cell sites.
  • T-Mobile claims both 4G and 5G for outdoor cellular coverage, but doesn’t claim it can work in a moving vehicle, meaning the coverage is also probably weak.
  • The last carrier listed is UScellular, which claims 7/1 speeds on 5G, but doesn’t claim to be able to provide coverage in vehicles. UScellular was purchased by T-Mobile, and the rumor is that any UScellular towers that already duplicate T-Mobile coverage are likely to be decommissioned.

The bottom line is that this particular neighborhood has weak cell coverage. The only carrier that claimed to be able to deliver 5G to a moving vehicle is now out of business.

I picked this neighborhood at random, but I think I would find the same story in most of the areas on the fringe of the metropolitan area. The coverage in areas that are completely rural is worse. The story I gleaned from this neighborhood is troublesome for several reasons.

  • The folks who live here don’t have a lot of options. The only carrier that might work in the way people need cellular to work is AT&T, but this neighborhood is outside the AT&T 5G coverage, and the 4G coverage is likely weak.
  • It looks like decent coverage was finally becoming available from EchoStar, but that’s now gone.
  • The speeds shown in the table are for outdoor coverage, and speeds inside homes are typically half of outdoor speeds.
  • When you look at the details in the FCC cellular map you quickly understand how the advertised national footprints of the big carriers are exaggerated.
  • The bad news is that the FCC considers this neighborhood to be served by cellular. That means if the FCC finally launches the 5G Fund for Rural America, this neighborhood will not be considered for funding to add a new cell tower.

Unintended Consequences

The industry news is always full of big events like mergers, bankruptcies, new regulations, or regulations killed. I’ve written many blogs about these kinds of issues, but I have rarely written about the unintended consequences of big industry changes. Today’s blog looks at two examples of unintended consequences.

The first is the decision  by EchoStar to abandon the facility-based cellular business. There were several factors that led to the company’s decision to abandon the business line, but the company says the primary reason was pressure from the FCC to use the spectrum it owned or return it to the FCC for auction. The FCC was also pressuring the company to build faster and to get more customers.

One of the unintended consequences of the FCC nudging EchoStar out of the cellular business is that the company decided in 2025 that its best option for maximizing value was to sell the spectrum it planned to use for cell towers. The company sold spectrum to Starlink that will support the company’s entry into the satellite cellular business. EchoStar also sold spectrum to AT&T, which was put to immediate use to boost bandwidth at 23,000 cell sites nationwide. Both of these consequences are positive for the industry and will benefit many millions of customers.

Another consequence of EchoStar abandoning cell towers is that the company walked away from a huge number of long-term leases for space on cell towers. A group of ten tower company executives met with the FCC recently and asked for help to recover the abandoned payments from EchoStar. The company says it had no choice but to walk away from the leases since it is no longer using towers, and they say this fits the “force majeure” clause in its contracts with tower owners that excuse payments in the case of an unforeseeable event. It’s going to be interesting to see if the FCC does anything, or even if they have any authority to intervene in a business contractual dispute. This same thing happens all of the time on a smaller scale when carriers and ISPs walk away from leases they no longer need, and the only real difference in the case is the magnitude of the issue. My bet is that the FCC will do nothing since this is now a commercial contract dispute, and it will probably tell tower owners to take their claims to court.

Another big piece of news is Verizon’s purchase of Frontier Communications. The purchase process started sixteen months before the deal finally closed, and much has changed in the industry since then. When the transaction was first announced, CEO Hans Vestberg touted the sale as moving Verizon forward in pursuing convergence. That’s the new industry phrase that replaces the old triple-play strategy and now refers to bundling broadband and cellphones.

Companies generally pursue mergers in an attempt to boost stock prices, and it will be interesting to see if that happens for Verizon. There are already industry analysts panning the merger, saying that it doesn’t really move the needle for Verizon. Pre-transaction, Verizon’s fiber covers 9.2% of the country, and Frontier brings another 4.3% coverage. This pales against the cable companies that lead in the convergence battle, with the biggest cable companies collectively passing 90% of households in the country.

There are also other consequences when companies merge. Verizon will claim it’s gaining efficiencies from the merger, but the real consequence is that a lot of folks at Frontier will lose jobs that would have been safe without the merger. Many of the vendors and suppliers that supported Frontier will suddenly find they have lost a giant customer. It’s likely that eventually the prices of the products at the two companies will be brought into synch, and since Verizon’s fiber prices are higher than Frontier’s, it probably means eventual price increases for Frontier customers.

AT&T Adds New 5G Spectrum

AT&T recently agreed to purchase the 3.45 GHz spectrum from EchoStar and was able to deploy the new spectrum in 23,000 AT&T cell sites in a matter of weeks. The company will use this spectrum to beef up 5G speeds and to also power its FWA cellular home broadband product it markets as AT&T Air. While the spectrum sale still needs to be officially recognized by the FCC, the agreement between EchoStar and AT&T allows for an immediate lease of the spectrum to AT&T.

Anybody following the cellular industry knows that AT&T’s 5G speeds have significantly trailed the speeds being delivered by Verizon and T-Mobile. This should also strengthen AT&T’s recent decision to seriously market its FWA product. AT&T was several years behind Verizon and T-Mobile in marketing wireless home broadband, and just started to seriously market the product in 2024. AT&T had its best quarter of new FWA sales in the third quarter and added 270,000 new customers to bring it to almost 1.3 million FWA customers.

The most interesting thing about this upgrade was the short time required for the upgrade, with 23,000 cell sites upgraded in weeks. Just a decade ago, an upgrade like this would have taken fleets of technicians visiting each cell site, and the update would have normally taken more than a year. I recall stories about the challenges AT&T and the other carriers faced in implementing the first wave of 4G LTE. The LTE upgrades weren’t a one-time event, and every six months to a year there would be new 4G improvements.

AT&T was able to make the upgrade quickly today for several reasons. First, AT&T already owns 3.45 GHz spectrum in some markets, so it has already built the spectrum into its handsets and headends.

But the real news is that AT&T has upgraded cell sites over time to make it easy to make software upgrades remotely. Starting in 2017, AT&T used the required upgrades needed to implement FirstNet, the nationwide first responder network, as an opportunity to also update hardware and software at cell sites for its own purposes. Upgrades were made to hardware and software to prepare cell sites for the next decade of likely upgrades.

It’s easy to think that a company like AT&T probably has a relatively generic configuration at cell sites, but that was never the story historically. AT&T and the other cellular carriers deploy different spectrum in markets depending on the cell licenses they hold in each region. The company operates a range of sizes of cell sites, from tiny rural ones to monster sites in major metropolitan areas. This now also includes a number of microcell sites in markets that are used to serve a large building or a particularly busy neighborhood. AT&T cell sites also vary widely by the age and specific type of electronics at each cell site. The complexity of the historical cellular network makes it easy to understand why it was so challenging to implement a nationwide upgrade.

But AT&T clearly invested a lot in software that can be triggered quickly for a large number of cell sites. This AT&T announcement is good for AT&T, which can instantly realize the benefits of a change like adding new spectrum. It’s good for customers, who see faster speeds immediately. It’s not so good for the many folks who used to travel and make this kind of upgrade.

I’m an AT&T cellular customer, and I took a cellular speed test as I wrote this blog. My download speed is almost 100 Mbps faster than some tests I had taken in the spring. That increase may not come from this upgrade, but it might.

Death of the Fourth Cellular Carrier

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.

AT&T’s Landline Alternative

AT&T announced at the end of 2024 that it plans to retire all copper networks by the end of 2029. The FCC noted in a recent filing that the use of traditional telephone service has decreased rapidly over time. At the peak in 2003, incumbent telcos had 181 landline telephone customers. By the middle of 2024 that had reduced to 18 million traditional landlines along with 64 million voice-over-IP voice customers.

The transition away from copper is going largely unnoticed in urban areas since customers typically have good alternatives to a landline. Surveys have shown that practically everybody has a cellphone, and in cities, except for dead zones in cellular coverage, the cellular network provides a good alternative to landlines.

However, there are still a lot of rural customers for whom a landline is the only reliable communications path to the world. AT&T was catching a lot of public grief when it started to tear down rural copper networks in areas where customers were told the only alternative was cellular service. Because of spotty or nonexistent rural cellular coverage, many rural residents never purchased an expensive cellphone. While a cellphone can be used to make voice calls, a cellphone is not an alternative for connecting medical devices, analog burglar alarms, and other technologies that had relied on the landline connection.

In 2024, AT&T conducted a test of a new technology it labeled as AT&T Phone – Advanced (AP-A). The service relies on an in-home cellular receiver that provides VoIP that can be plugged into existing telephone wiring to provide connections to existing telephone sets and devices connected to the customer’s copper.

The technology worked as planned, and the FCC approved the new technology as a landline replacement. The FCC’s initial approval only concerned a small test conducted of the device in Oklahoma. It’s not clear how widely AT&T is marketing this product, but the company touted the trial to the FCC as being a robust replacement product for rural landlines.

You might wonder about how the product replaces DSL, and it doesn’t. This product is for the rural home that wants to maintain only a landline. It’s worth noting that now that the FCC has labeled broadband as a service, not regulated under Title II, the FCC has no rules that require telcos to offer an alternative to eliminating DSL broadband. This was made explicitly clear in July when the FCC created a 2-year moratorium on having to notify the public about copper replacements.

Rural DSL has rarely been an adequate product due to the fact that customers are typically too far from the DSL hub to get any appreciable speed. But AT&T does have a rural DSL replacement in places where the company has enabled rural cell sites to provide FWA cellular home broadband. As of the second quarter of this year, AT&T has installed over 1 million customers on the FWA product. The FWA product is only effective within a few miles of cell sites that have been FWA-enabled.

It looks like AT&T will be able to expand its FWA footprint after the announcement that the company purchased a pile of spectrum from Echostar. Analysts are already speculating that the primary benefit of the new spectrum is to greatly expand the FWA broadband product.

Satellites in the News

It seems like there is daily news concerning satellites used for broadband and telecommunications. Following are a sampling of some of the recent announcements.

Starlink Outage. Starlink experienced a worldwide 2.5-hour network outage on July 23 that was blamed on “key internal software services that operate the core network”. This raises questions about using satellite broadband for mission-critical uses, such as for military field operations.

T-Mobile Satellite Texting. T-Mobile has been plastering the airwaves with ads that tout the ability of T-Mobile customers to use its satellites to send text messages from remote locations. The service is available free to T-Mobile cellular and broadband customers and is available to others for $10 per month. T-Mobile enabled the service for free to everybody in the Kerr County, Texas area after the recent flooding, and the company said it would do the same for future disasters. The company says that by the end of the year, 911 texting will be available to all cellphone customers in the U.S., regardless of their subscribed carrier.

Project Kuiper. The company is now in the deployment phase of its satellite constellation that will compete with Starlink. The latest launch of 27 satellites brought the number of deployed satellites to 102. The company has scheduled 80 more launches and believes it can begin offering some commercial services by the end of this year. The first planned constellation will consist of 3,236 satellites.

Echostar. The company announced a deal with MDA Space to launch 200 satellites that will provide cellphone service from satellites by 2029. The satellite constellation would use Echostar’s existing 2 GHz AWS-4 spectrum, which they hope will justify keeping the spectrum.

AST SpaceMobile. The company has asked the FCC to launch 243 additional satellites by 2028 that would provide cellular service in direct competition with T-Mobile (and possibly Echostar). The new satellites have a large antenna array of 223 square meters.

New Regulations. The FCC voted on August 7 to accelerate the licensing process for new proposed satellite launches. This was done to keep pace with the explosive growth of the space economy. This implies even more satellites in low orbits, making the space increasingly crowded. As of July 2024, there were over 11,000 satellites in space, with over 10,000 that are active. There are worldwide plans to have as many as 100,000 satellites in orbit by 2030, the vast majority in low-orbit space.

Spectrum. The FCC is in the process of considering four new spectrum bands for satellites. This includes spectrum from 12.7-13.25 GHz, 42-42.5 GHz, 51.4-52.4 GHz, and the “W-band” that includes various ranges including 92.0-94.0 GHz, 94.1-100 GHz, 102.0-109.5 GHz, and 111.8-114.25 GHz. Altogether this is over 200,000 Megahertz of spectrum. The FCC is also considering increasing the power limits on some of the spectrum, which would greatly increase bandwidth utilization. There are some concerns about overuse of some of the proposed bands. For example, meteorologists are warning about overallocation of spectrum in the 52 GHz band.

BEAD Grants. It seems obvious with announcements from some state broadband offices that the amount of the BEAD grants allocated to satellite broadband will increase significantly. There should be some pronouncements coming of grant awards within a month or so, depending on any bottleneck at the NTIA when it tries to process BEAD grants from all states at nearly the same time.

EchoStar Stays Alive

We are in the midst of what can only be considered as merger mania, a topic I covered in yesterday’s blog. One of the recently announced deals is the announcement that DirecTV is acquiring all video assets of EchoStar, which had just merged with Dish at the beginning of this year. This means that DirecTV will take on all of the Dish video customers along with Sling TV. As part of the merger, DirectTV is also taking on all of EchoStar’s debt.

This means several things for the industry. First, it means there will only be one satellite-based traditional video provider. DirecTV hasn’t said if it will continue to market under the Dish brand name, but the two satellite services will now be one. This will give the company the chance to consolidate and save costs. It also means that DirecTV will have a lot more cable customers and should have more leverage with programmers. Both DirecTV and Dish have been fighting with programmers to allow smaller video packages that people want. You might recall that DirecTV also currently serves the traditional AT&T cable customers.

The other interesting consequence of this is that it saves Charlie Ergen’s launch of Dish, the newest cellular company. Dish had been facing a $2 billion debt maturation next month, and many analysts predicted the company would have to enter bankruptcy. This gives Dish a clean balance sheet for the cellular business and provides the company with up to $5.5 billion in new debt headroom to complete the network and market its cellular services. The merger is not yet a done deal, and various creditors are being asked to take a haircut to help complete the transaction.

The press releases refer to the remaining Cellular company as EchoStar, and we’ll have to see if the cellular business keeps that brand name going forward.

It’s going to be interesting to watch Dish. The company spent $6 billion to meet its build-out commitments to the FCC. It’s estimated it will need a few billion more to meet the next coverage commitments in 2025.

Dish took a big chance on its original network design and pursued an open RAN architecture, which has the goal of using off-the-shelf generic hardware instead of the proprietary gear offered by the handful of industry vendors. The open RAN hardware has taken longer to perfect than hoped for, and the company ended up building a network that is a mix of open RAN and more traditional gear.

Dish has struggled. It acquired Boost Mobile and saw customers drop from 10 million to under 7.5 million. But the company seems poised to start attracting customers to it’s new 5G networks, which are likely wide open. I’ve been looking at the FCC cellular maps a lot lately, and I see Dish is in many markets like around my city, where it likely doesn’t yet have many customers.

It’s interesting how quickly the cellular industry has changed. The FCC required T-Mobile to support the launch of Dish as a term of T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint. At that time, just a few years ago, the FCC felt that the market would suffer without a replacement for Sprint. But since then, the big cable companies are aggressively selling cellular and migrating traffic to their own existing wireline networks. Other large ISPs and telcos other than AT&T and Verizon are exploring the cellular business plan as well.

One of the more interesting possibilities for Dish is to enter the fray in pursuit of FWA cellular broadband customers.