Dish to Court: 'Unprecedented' FCC Action Trumps Tower Contract Obligations
Dish Wireless' 2021 service colocation agreement (SCA) with American Tower doesn't require Dish to keep making payments for tower space that's no longer usable due to "the FCC’s unprecedented and unforeseeable regulatory actions," EchoStar subsidiary Dish said last week. In an answer to American Tower's complaint (docket 1:25-cv-03311), Dish told the U.S. District Court for Colorado that the FCC's actions "were unrelated" to any of EchoStar's FCC obligations and forced "the involuntary sale and loss of the necessary spectrum licenses essential to Defendant’s wireless network operations." American Tower is suing Dish, which said it would no longer make payments under the terms of the companies' tower lease agreement (see 2510280038). Crown Castle is similarly suing Dish (see 2511260013).
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Dish said the forced sale and loss of its spectrum licenses "made it impossible and/or commercially impracticable" to meet its SCA obligations. The company said the FCC's probes of its spectrum use were "unforeseeable and unprecedented [and] outside Defendant’s control." According to Dish, the point of the SCA was to let it operate a nationwide wireless network using particular spectrum licenses, and that "has been substantially frustrated" by the FCC.