EchoStar offloads satellite spectrum to SpaceX for $17 billion

Dish genitor institution EchoStar is selling wireless spectrum licenses to SpaceX for around $17 billion, the companies announced on Monday. SpaceX says it volition usage the spectrum to make the “next generation” of Starlink’s cellular outer service, which customers of the EchoStar-owned Boost Mobile volition summation entree to arsenic portion of the deal.

According to EchoStar, this deal, on with the antecedently announced $23 cardinal merchantability of 5G spectrum to AT&T, is expected to resoluteness an probe by the Federal Communications Commission.

In May, FCC Chair Brendan Carr opened a probe into EchoStar’s 5G enlargement aft receiving a ailment from SpaceX, which claimed the institution “barely uses” its spectrum for outer connectivity. EchoStar had primitively planned to usage its AWS-4 (2GHz) spectrum set to enable direct-to-device outer compartment service, but this merchantability puts an extremity to that goal.

In the property release, EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan said the woody volition let SpaceX “to recognize the direct-to-cell imaginativeness successful a much innovative, economical and faster mode for consumers worldwide.”