Dish Network gains as DOJ supports more time to wrap T-Mobile spectrum deal
Bill Oxford
Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) was 4% higher early Tuesday after getting support from the Justice Dept. for its push for more time to buy low-band spectrum from would-be rival T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS).
Dish, set to become the fourth major wireless competitor after deals that allowed the merger of T-Mobile with Sprint, had asked the U.S. District Court for D.C. to grant a 10-month extension on an option to pay $3.59B to buy 800 MHz spectrum from T-Mobile (TMUS).
That was a transaction T-Mobile (TMUS) agreed to in order to win approval for the Sprint deal, but Dish's balance sheet has suffered in the meantime (with the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and higher interest rates) leading up to an August deadline to complete the deal. And T-Mobile would prefer to auction those airwaves sooner than later.
The DOJ's antitrust regulators are now urging the judge to grant Dish until April 1 to finish the deal -- support that isn't too surprising since the intent of the spectrum deal was to boost industry competition.
T-Mobile says carrying the spectrum for another 10 months will cost it $215.7M in extra expenses, and that auctioning it later if Dish fails to come through will bring a lower price as the licenses age.

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