US TELECOMS & CABLE : FCC Approves EchoStar's Spectrum Sales

Research evidence excerpt

US TELECOMS & CABLE : FCC Approves EchoStar's Spectrum Sales

EQUITIES

TELECOM OPERATORS

US TELECOMS & CABLE

FLASH NOTE

FCC Approves EchoStar's Spectrum Sales

12 MAY 2026 Securities Research Report Production time: 22:13* (London time)

Research Analyst & Publishing Entities

Sam McHugh BNP Paribas Securities Corp (1) +1 212 471 6569 sam.mchugh@us.bnpparibas.com

What happened?

The FCC issued orders granting the (previously announced) transfer of EchoStar’s 600MHz and 3.45GHz spectrum to

AT&T (see here) and the transfer of EchoStar’s AWS-4, H-Block, and AWS-3 unpaired uplink licenses to SpaceX (see

here). The approvals are not surprising, given that the FCC had implicitly threatened to cancel the licenses if EchoStar

didn’t sell them.

Telecom investors had worried that the FCC might impose conditions on the approvals that would ultimately be harmful

for the Big Three carriers (e.g. wholesale conditions that could have forced AT&T to offer more broad MVNO terms,

e.g. to Starlink), but that did not happen (details overleaf).

As far as we can tell, the only material condition for either deal is the requirement that EchoStar establish a $2.4bn fund

to settle claims from tower companies and other partners related to its outstanding obligations.

BNPP View: The orders are a modest positive for the wireless industry as they remove uncertainty about potentially

harmful wholesale conditions.

More detailed thoughts

* Specifically, investors feared that the FCC would require AT&T to accept conditions related to wholesale and roaming

agreements which would effectively force them to provide SpaceX with an MVNO, but the FCC declined to do so.

* At the same time, investors were worried that the regulator might require SpaceX to fulfil the terrestrial wireless buildout