EchoStar charts asset-light future after spectrum sales

EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan used a presentation at World Satellite Business Week in Paris to underscore a shift in strategy towards becoming an “asset-light growth company”, following billion dollar deals to sell spectrum to SpaceX and AT&T.

The strategic pivot comes after EchoStar sold its 3.45GHz and 600MHz spectrum licences to AT&T for $23 billion in August and later offloaded its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum to SpaceX for $17 billion last week. “If you transacted on either one of those pieces of spectrum, you were forced to do the second transaction,” Akhavan said today (15 September).

The spectrum sales effectively ended EchoStar’s ambition to become the fourth major US mobile network operator. During the presentation, the CEO described the shift as “a forced pivot,” explaining that while the company believed its holdings could deliver more value over time, FCC pressure made action unavoidable. “Once you start losing a critical mass of spectrum… you are no longer competitive”, added Akhavan.

The result is an EchoStar that will no longer operate a traditional wireless network, instead pivoting to a hybrid MNO/MVNO model, taking advantage of partnerships with AT&T and SpaceX. Boost Mobile will remain the primary customer-facing brand under this approach, with Akhavan emphasising that the company is committed to expanding its mobile phone business and sees it as a central growth driver: “We have great hopes for Boost.”

Ignorant
Also speaking at the event, co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen indicated EchoStar now has both the experience and capital to expand Boost more aggressively. “We actually know what we’re doing now. We were the most ignorant people in wireless four or five years ago… we’ve learned a lot of hard lessons,” noted Egren.

Despite exiting network ownership, Akhavan highlighted the company’s long-standing focus on connectivity. “That’s been the core alley and runway for the past 40 years. We won’t give up any of that heritage,” he said. Pointing to EchoStar’s long-standing commitment to mobile tech, he stated, “you should hope to see an expansion of that if we are successful in implementing the strategy we’re talking about here.”

Akhavan also confirmed EchoStar’s corporate brand will remain purely a holding company identity and will not be consumer-facing. Customer-facing operations will continue under their established standalone brands, including Boost Mobile, Dish, Sling and HughesNet.

The transactions, which brought in billions in cash and equity, including $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, mark a financial reset. Ergen framed the SpaceX equity as a long-term play: “If I could make one investment other than ourselves, it would be in SpaceX because they’ve got 90 per cent of the launch capability in the world today,” he stated, citing the Elon Musk-owned company’s sophisticated manufacturing capabilities. “We were going to try to interface with them anyway.”