Tell us what you think, @cbwahlstrom, especially what this may mean for those of use who kept our numbers with Dish through the transitions from Republic Wireless to Boost.
I don’t think it means anything for customers of Boost for the foreseeable future. It seems to be just another move in Dish’s perpetual shell game of debt. Boost will continue on with AT&T as the primary partner. The only announcement of service changes I’ve seen is that Project Genesis hotspot-only service will end on Aug. 31. I suppose that’s no great surprise, since the Dish 5G native network is dead, and they’ve been using AT&T to provide unlimited* hotspot data to that subset of users. Project Genesis hasn’t sold those hotspot devices for several years.
Dish will receive a nice pile of cash when the sale of spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX closes, but the FCC has made that closure conditional on Dish putting $2.4 billion in escrow in order to potentially settle pending lawsuits with tower partners. By filing for chapter 11 protection, Dish can avoid a $2 billion interest payment to their bond holders due this month. That gives them capital to fund their escrow account, and restructure and retire some bonds with money from the spectrum sale.
At least that’s how I understand it. I could always be wrong. Just ask my wife.