500 Boost network employees get sacked as the company loses the opportunity to be one of the «Big 4» U.S. carriers.
Lately, things have been going bad fir EchoStar. After it purchased Dish Network on the last day of 2023, EchoStar-owned Boost Mobile was supposed to be working on replacing Sprint as the fourth facilities based wireless carrier replacing Sprint. The latter had been gobbled up by T-Mobile in 2020 leaving only three major U.S. carriers and both the FCC and DOJ frowned on the reduced competition.
The FCC and Chairman Brendan Carr have been pushing EchoStar, accusing the company of hoarding its spectrum holdings, hoping to sell the licenses for big profits. This constant pressure from Carr led EchoStar to sell 50MHz of spectrum to AT&T for $23 billion. AT&T acquired 20MHz of 600MHz low-band airwaves that will be used by AT&T for its nationwide 5G service called AT&T 5G. The 30MHz of 3.45GHz mid-band spectrum acquired by AT&T will be used for AT&T’s faster AT&T 5G+ service.
Without the spectrum it sold, EchoStar’s hope of having its Boost Mobile brand join Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T as the Big Four in the U.S. went up in smoke. It’s not as though Boost Mobile has been thriving. The number of subscriber declined form the 9 million Boost had at the time it was purchased by Dish Network. Currently, Boost is believed to have 7.4 million customers, a 17.8% decline.
After losing its spectrum, Boost will become a hybrid MNO, or a hybrid Mobile Network Operator.
