Dish fires back at T-Mobile over 800 MHz extension request

Dish Network defended its request for more time to buy 800 MHz spectrum from T-Mobile, telling a Washington (DC) court that it boils down to the final judgment the court approved in 2020. Dish originally was supposed to exercise its option to purchase the spectrum by June 30, 2023, but received an extension. It’s now seeking a 10-month extension because it doesn’t have $3.6 billion on hand to buy the licenses. T-Mobile responded with its opposition, arguing that Dish can’t claim hardship or difficulty as grounds for modifying the final judgment and that rising interest rates, whatever their cause, have always been a known risk of financing. Dish seized on that, telling the court: “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. But those events have seriously impaired Dish’s ability to close the purchase of the 800 MHz spectrum licenses in the near term.”