T-Mobile says that Dish should not get a pass since it should have known things like higher interest rates were possible
T-Mobile, in its filing with the court, said that Dish should not be allowed to get an extension due to financial hardships like higher interest rates since that is always a known risk of financing. Dish responded to the court by saying that certain things, like the Ukraine war and the pandemic, were not foreseeable.
T-Mobile doesn’t want the court to give Dish a 10-month extension to exercise its option to buy 800MHz spectrum
“T-Mobile’s cavalier attitude toward unprecedented interest rate hikes notwithstanding, the global financial turbulence resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and a war in Europe was certainly not foreseeable by Dish when the Division commenced this action in mid-2019,” Dish said. “But those events have seriously impaired Dish’s ability to close the purchase of the 800MHz spectrum licenses in the near term”
Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen recently said that the 800MHz low-band airwaves were not a must-have, but Dish says that T-Mobile took the comments out of context and “cherry-picked” them. Dish says that the 800MHz spectrum is still necessary for it to compete in the wireless industry.
Dish told the court that it still needs the 800MHz spectrum to be competitive
Writing to the court, Dish stated, “The 800MHz frequencies are instrumental to reducing Dish’s marginal costs because they will help avoid network congestion – a key driver of costs. If the 800 MHz licenses were to go to another buyer, Dish would not be able to simply buy other low-band and uplink spectrum at its convenience.” New Street Research (NSR) analyst Blair Levin told clients that while it is still a tough decision, he believes that the DOJ will side with Dish and file with the court on its behalf.
“Even assuming that Burns & McDonnell’s unidentified ‘Group’ of financing, utility and industry partners could consummate a purchase of the 800 MHz spectrum licenses, only by some miraculous metamorphosis could these companies fill the competitive void left by Sprint.” Dish wrote. “Any benefit from Burns & McDonnell’s acquisition of the spectrum would be outside the national facilities-based mobile wireless market and therefore would not offset the loss to competition cause when T-Mobile swallowed its closest competitor.”
