Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen has described wireless operator T-Mobile US as the US DTH giant’s only option for an acquisition or merger, as it looks to deploy its spectrum for wireless services.
Speaking on the satellite broadcaster’s Q2…
Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen has described wireless operator T-Mobile US as the US DTH giant’s only option for an acquisition or merger, as it looks to deploy its spectrum for wireless services.
Speaking on the satellite broadcaster’s Q2 results call, Ergen also said he considered a network partnership with an operator to now be his preference for breaking into wireless.
He said that T-Mobile “is a company who, if you want to go into the wireless business, they come kind of ready-made to go do that”. He added that it was probably the only company it could buy or merge with given the wave of consolidation in the US wireless industry over the past year.
Last month T-Mobile US CEO John Legere said he was “intrigued” by Ergen’s vision to integrate his DTH business with a wireless operator. He added that his company was open to all strategic options; its parent Deutsche Telekom has long been reported to be looking to exit the US market.
Earlier this year Dish tried and failed to acquire Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, ultimately losing out to Japan’s Softbank. Ergen praised the Japanese telco in the call and floated the idea of partnering with the new-look Softbank-controlled Sprint.
“I don’t really know the Softbank executives at this point, but they seem very innovative and they seem very creative, and they certainly seem to be more aggressive maybe than some of the other people in the wireless business,” he said.
“They basically won an asset that we’d like to have. We gave it our best shot to get it. And sometimes, your best isn’t good enough, but their best was better than ours. I like those kinds of people … I like to work with people that are better than us.”
Ergen also touched on the long-mooted potential merger between Dish and DirecTV, saying that it made sense and was something his company would look at, but added that he had doubts about the regulatory environment and the DTH providers’ divergent strategies.
