Bank: Praises AT&T over spectrum deal
September 1, 2025
Analysts at investment bank BNP-Paribas have welcomed the $23 billion (€19.6bn) agreement from US cellular giant AT&T to acquire spectrum from EchoStar. But the bank says it is not the best news for cable operators.
“Overall, we see this as a good deal for AT&T and the wireless industry in general, and a small negative for the Cable operators. We had discussed the possibility of breaking up EchoStar in an earlier note. For AT&T, the deal secures additional spectrum, prolongs the existence of [EchoStar-owned] Boost Mobile as a wholesale customer, and avoids the Boost spectrum falling into the hands of a third party (e.g. there have been fears of an Amazon acquiring Boost, or the cable companies acquiring the spectrum and becoming bigger competitors in wireless). In a similar vein, we think this is broadly positive for the wireless industry (Verizon and T-Mobile US) as it removes a potential negative event of cable/other company acquiring EchoStar licenses and wireless operations (with the small caveat that this deal may also enable EchoStar to fund Boost wireless for longer than was previously possible),” explained the bank’s report.
The report added: “A negative for cable, as one potential path to Cable’s owner economics in wireless is closing and more Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) competition. We view this as a small negative for the cable industry, as this deal will bolster AT&T’s spectrum positioning, giving them growing capacity to offer FWA services (potentially capacity for an additional 1-2 million households). Furthermore, while complicated, the existence of EchoStar as a potential longer-term partner for cable in the wireless industry (to diversify their MVNO arrangements away from Verizon) did create some optionality – but this transaction reduces that potential optionality, giving the cable companies less long-term negotiating power with Verizon.”
BNP-Paribas says that EchoStar still owns over 70MHz of other licenses in the US, and it is possible that both Verizon and T-Mobile could be interested in acquiring further licenses, with a bigger breakup of EchoStar potentially on the table.”
The bank’s view is that the FCC is clearly supportive of the deal, given the Chairman has made several public statements on wanting EchoStar’s spectrum to be put to better use.
“The DoJ (in various filings) has been more hawkish on spectrum being acquired by the big-3 wireless carriers, but this deal appears to have been struck to enable Boost to remain the 4th wireless carrier (albeit with more reliance on AT&T’s network than before), and our understanding is that the DoJ don’t have a say in spectrum license transfers – so in short this deal has, in our view, a high probability of being approved,” noted the bank.
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