FCC Unfairly Targeting EchoStar, Former Commissioner Simington Says
The agency probes risk disrupting the market for spectrum licenses, former GOP commissioner wrote
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, June 11, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission should reverse course in its probes against EchoStar, former FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington argued in a Tuesday op-ed.
The agency opened two dockets last month, seeking input on whether EchoStar is effectively using its 2 GigaHertz satellite spectrum and whether the FCC should reconsider its 2024 decision to give EchoStar more time to reach its 5G buildout milestones. Both cited complaints against the company from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has been angling to get access to EchoStar’s spectrum.
“These proceedings have the cumulative effect of threatening EchoStar with numerous spectrum license revocations, which has severely affected EchoStar’s ability to raise capital,” Simington wrote. The company has indeed missed hundreds of millions in interest payments since the reviews began, citing uncertainty resulting from the proceedings.
Threatening to effectively bankrupt the company is disproportionate to what EchoStar is accused of, Simington wrote, and has the effect of making everyone else’s licenses feel less secure by raising the possibility that they too could be easily revoked. The major wireless carriers spend tens of billions on spectrum licenses in recent years.
“Every holder of a spectrum license is taking note: threatening license revocations is the ultimate sanction because without licenses, you don’t have a wireless business,” he wrote. “EchoStar claims to have met its commitments, so moving to threaten its licenses seems extremely market-disruptive out of proportion to any claimed offense.”
Reply comments came in both FCC inquiries yesterday, with commenters, including conservative think tanks and former GOP commissioners, broadly saying the same thing as Simington and warning the agency risked damaging its credibility. SpaceX and some other satellite companies maintained EchoStar’s airwaves were fallow and should be opened up.
Simington’s editorial was published just days after he left his position at the FCC, and on the heels of an online feud between Musk and President Donald Trump. In addition to controlling SpaceX, Musk is a top GOP donor and was until recently a close advisor to Trump.
Blair Levin, a policy advisor at New Street Research and former FCC chief of staff, said it was likely FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, historically an ally of Musk’s, heard Simington's arguments privately and disregarded them. But the op-ed was likely aimed at making it easier for Republicans to take the anti-Musk position on the issue, Levin wrote in an investor note.
“We think it was intended to affect the next Republican FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, the White House, and other MAGA influencers,” he said. “If Trusty takes Simington’s point of view, it will be difficult for Carr to maintain the negotiating leverage we think he is using the proceedings to obtain.”
EchoStar said in its latest filing that several requests to meet with Carr since September 2024, including a May 12 request directly from EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen, had gone unanswered. That does not bode well for the company, Levin wrote.
He said in a separate note that it was likely the agency would ultimately propose satellite sharing in the 2 GHz band, even in light of the Trump-Musk spat, which has since appeared to die down.
“It opens the door wider, however, to a more fruitful negotiation between Carr and Ergen over those licenses as Carr will now be less interested in using the leverage over those licenses to cause Ergen to strike a sharing deal with Musk in the AWS-4/2 GHz band,” Levin wrote.
