Trump FCC To ‘Investigate’ Dish 5G Network, To The Direct Benefit Of… Elon Musk

You might recall that the first Trump DOJ and FCC cobbled together a dumb plan to cover up the problems created by their rubber stamping of the competition-eroding T-Mobile and Sprint merger: they’d help Dish Network create a new 5G network out of vibes and twine. As we noted back in 2019, the entire gambit was doomed to failure for a long list of reasons.

As we predicted it’s… none of this is going well. All of the problems critics of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger predicted (layoffs, price hikes, less competition, worse service) have come true. Meanwhile Dish has been bleeding satellite TV, wireless, and streaming TV subscribers for a while, and Dish’s new 5G network has generally been received as a sort of half-hearted joke. 

So it’s important to keep in mind the first Trump administration created this whole dumb mess during Trump’s first term after his “antitrust enforcers” spent their personal free time helping these companies get bigger (which is not how “antitrust enforcement” is supposed to work, of course).

Now Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr says he’s launching a new “investigation” into the Dish 5G Network and Echostar (which recently acquired Dish). Carr, claims in a letter to Echostar Chairman Charlie Ergen, that he’s simply trying to “ensure that the companies we regulate comply with the terms of
their federal spectrum licenses” and is meeting mandated FCC build out requirements:

“As you know, buildout obligations are one way that the FCC can ensure that Americans,
including those living in rural communities, have a fair shot at next-generation connectivity.
After all, failure to meet buildout obligations leaves these communities behind.”

But of course this is Brendan Carr — a guy who doesn’t actually believe in any sort of coherent oversight of corporate power. Unless it involves bullying companies for not being racist enough, or harassing media companies that engage in journalism critical of King Trump.

So why is Carr stepping in now? AT&T, Verizon, and Elon Musk all want the spectrum the Dish 5G network is using:

“Carr’s EchoStar investigation also reflects the long shadow that Musk casts over the US economy. Carr said he will look into “the scope and scale of MSS utilization in the 2GHz band that is currently licensed to EchoStar or its affiliates.” That’s the exact spectrum band that Musk’s SpaceX has signaled that it wants to take away from EchoStar for its own usage.”

If you’re say an ordinary person reading general news coverage of Carr’s “investigation,” you’ll never really get a real sense of how wildly corrupt this all is.

Again, the first administration created the Dish 5G network to create flimsy cover for the harmful consolidation caused by approving the Sprint T-Mobile merger. Now that that shitty deal is in the rear view mirror and everybody made their money, they want to strip the Dish 5G network for parts and force a sale Ergen’s valuable spectrum holdings to Elon Musk. Or AT&T and Verizon. Whoever has the best lawyers.

Carr is pretending to engage in serious adult policymaking, when they’re really just trying to offload valuable spectrum to Trump’s rich buddies. If you squint real hard it kind of looks like a real government doing serious policy (and outlets like the Wall Street Journal will certainly portray it as such), but in reality it’s a corrupt, ever-evolving joke.