The expiration of the option will not have a big impact on Dish according to Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner. The analyst notes that while the low-band 800MHz signals travel long distances, the amount of spectrum covered by the option was not enough to allow Dish to add extra capacity or provide additional services.
The recently combined Echostar/Dish Network warned in the SEC filing that there is “substantial doubt” that the company can continue as a going concern. With a combination of debt coming due in 2024 and the strong likelihood that it will burn through a “substantial amount of cash” in the next 12 months, it “raises substantial doubt about [the company’s] ability to continue as a going concern,” the company said in the filing.
Dish lost 123,000 pre-paid subscribers during Q4 of 2023, a huge increase from the 25,000 pre-paid subscribers it lost during the same quarter a year earlier. Dish has 7.38 million Boost subscribers remaining and Moffett says that Dish has lost 2.6 million Boost subscribers since it started offering wireless service in 2020.
Moffett, the analyst, added, “To state the obvious, neither the Boost pre-paid business nor the nascent 5G business looks like a meaningful operating asset in the likely event of a bankruptcy. Spectrum salvage value is all there is here.”
