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FirstLight to FCC: Make EchoStar Meet Past Commitments to Suppliers

FirstLight Fiber told the FCC last week that it shouldn't approve EchoStar's spectrum license sales to SpaceX and AT&T without first getting EchoStar's Dish Wireless to pledge that it will fulfill its contractual obligations to tower and fiber vendors. In…

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a docket 25-302 filing, FirstLight said Dish's claims to vendors that the spectrum sales were unforeseeable events outside its control are "laughable." EchoStar negotiated those spectrum sales in a way "that yielded it a considerable return on its investment." Letting Dish default on its contractual agreements would hurt the wireless infrastructure ecosystem, the FCC's spectrum assignment process and fiber deployments, FirstLight added. Wireless industry groups and other Dish suppliers have made similar arguments (see 2512160006).