Dish Affiliates to Surrender Some Airwaves Licenses Won at Auction

Affiliates of Dish Network Corp. Thursday ​surrendered​ some spectrum licenses back to the government, according to people familiar with the matter, after failing to secure a $3.3 billion small-business​ discount earlier this year.

Dish's entities will keep about $9.8 billion of the licenses they won in an auction by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, and they will pay a penalty on the licenses that they won't acquire, the people said. The Dish entities will default on about 200 licenses, one of the people said.

The FCC concluded this summer that the $13.3 billion in winning bids by two Dish-backed companies—Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless—didn't qualify for the small-business discounts because Dish effectively controlled the entities.

At the auction, which ended in January, Dish's affiliates came away with nearly half of the wireless licenses sold. Their winning bid total was second only to AT&T Inc. and ahead of Verizon Communications Inc. Dish doesn't offer wireless service but has said previously it would like to.

Write to Ryan Knutson at [e-mail], Shalini Ramachandran at [e-mail] and Thomas Gryta at [e-mail]

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October 01, 2015 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

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