FCC Chair Brendan Carr is considering the revocation of valuable spectrum licenses granted by the Biden Administration to EchoStar after the company and its Chairman and major Democrat donor Charlie Ergen failed to build a promised 5G network serving rural Americans.
EchoStar Founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen is undermining the goals of the Trump Administration by hoarding valuable, unused spectrum – without building the 5G network it promised would serve rural America.
In 2024, the Biden Administration (through both the DOJ and the FCC) brokered a sweetheart deal with Ergen to permit EchoStar to break its promise to the first Trump Administration to build out a nationwide 5G mobile network. The Biden FCC relieved Ergen of his commitment to build the network by 2025, and the Biden DOJ moved to terminate a civil fraud lawsuit, alleging that DISH (which spun off Echostar) and Ergen fraudulently manipulated an FCC spectrum auction that enabled EchoStar to accumulate spectrum licenses in the first place.
In May, President Trump posted on Truth Social:
We must maintain our status as the Worldwide Leader in WiFi, 5G, and 6G, connecting every American to the World’s BEST Networks, while also keeping everyone safe. We can do both at the same time. Bottom line, I am going to free up plenty of SPECTRUM for auction, so Congress must put 600 MHz in “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.” Let’s make sure all options are on the table. Never bet against American Ingenuity. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Importantly, the FCC can revoke licenses when the licensee fails to meet its obligations to build and serve the public. Now, FCC Chair Carr seeks to return to the status quo ante and require Ergen to hold up his end of the bargain with first Trump Administration. If he can’t, license revocation is a very likely remedy.
Over the last two decades, Ergen and EchoStar began accumulating spectrum licenses to build a wireless network but never completed the infrastructure to serve the public. In 2019, as the Trump DOJ was approving the T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint, the Trump FCC gave EchoStar one last chance to meet its deadlines to build out a nationwide 5G network by June 2025, including to large swaths of rural America that voted for Donald Trump three times. That very same deal also gave Ergen the opportunity to formally enter the retail wireless business with EchoStar’s acquisition of Boost Mobile from T-Mobile, which at the time had 9 million subscribers.
But rather the build and grow, Ergen used his political clout with Biden and Democrats to break those commitments. As the Hill has noted, Ergen is accused “of using his position atop DISH to leverage campaign donations from other executives.” Ergen, his wife, and Dish’s PAC collectively gave over $5.4 million to Democrats. They never gave a penny to Trump but contributed $114,000 to Biden-Harris in 2020; $177,000 to Biden, Harris, and Democratic Super PACs in 2024, and nearly $1 million to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Ergen also hired a team of Democratic lobbyists. His head lobbyist, Jeff Blum, has donated thousands of dollars to Biden, Kamala, Clinton, and other Democrats. Ergen and Blum hired Democratic lobbyists such as former Pelosi staffer Jonathan Mantz, Obama alums Lauren Aronson and Nichole DeStefano, and David Goodfriend, one of the founders of the failed far-left talk radio network Air America.
This all laid the groundwork for the Biden Administration to cut its sweetheart deal with Ergen in 2024. Since then, Ergen and EchoStar have built little to nothing in terms of a wireless network. In fact, Boost Mobile has two million fewer subscribers today (7 million) than when the Trump Administration orchestrated the sale of Boost Mobile to Ergen with the promise that he’d grow it to compete with incumbents like AT&T.
And to the extent Ergen has deployed a network, it’s noticeably blue and urban, leaving large swaths of red and rural America unconnected. This map of Senate Republican Leader John Thune’s home state of South Dakota is telling. It is based on FCC data and shows in pink the very limited presence of any EchoStar 5G infrastructure.
Under the leadership of FCC Chair Brendan Carr, the agency has started to scrutinize Ergen’s corrupt 2024 deal with the Biden Administration and EchoStar’s failure even to meet these minimal requirements. Last month, he wrote to Ergen, noting,
The terms of the deal were clear . . .The FCC structured the buildout obligations to prevent spectrum warehousing and to ensure that Americans would gain broader access to high-speed wireless services, including in underserved and rural areas.
Biden’s FCC and DOJ clearly gave a Democratic donor special favors, and the Trump FCC is now ensuring the company abides by its original promises. Whether EchoStar lives up to its original agreement or Brendan Carr and others in the Trump Administration must take action remains to be seen.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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