By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump prodded Dish TV parent EchoStar Corp and Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr earlier this month to reach an amicable deal over the fate of the company’s wireless spectrum licenses, the company said in a filing on Friday.
In May, the FCC told EchoStar it was investigating the company’s compliance obligations to provide 5G service in the United States, questioning EchoStar’s buildout extension and mobile-satellite service.
Bloomberg News first reported that Trump met on June 12 with EchoStar Chair Charlie Ergen and later called Carr to take part in the meeting. EchoStar has been trying to shield its cache of wireless spectrum licenses from the threat of revocation by the FCC.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Friday and had previously declined to confirm the meeting took place.
Carr did not immediately comment on the report on Friday but at a monthly FCC press conference on Thursday he told reporters, regarding EchoStar, that the “status quo needs to change” and added there was a “narrow window of opportunity here.”
EchoStar said in a filing on Friday that Trump “encouraged the parties involved to reach an amicable resolution.”
Ergen told Carr this month any reconsideration of the construction deadline extensions or revision to the 2 GHz band’s sharing rules “would threaten the viability of EchoStar’s current operations and future plans.”
U.S. satellite TV provider DirecTV terminated its agreement to acquire EchoStar’s satellite television business last year, which includes rival Dish TV, over a failed debt-exchange offer.
EchoStar said the FCC review was “harming EchoStar’s ongoing deployment and threaten its viability as a wireless provider as well as endanger the video and broadband satellite services upon which millions of consumers rely.”
EchoStar previously disclosed that it missed roughly $500 million in interest payments, citing uncertainty around the ongoing FCC review but said on Friday that based on current discussions with the commission it was making interest payments to “further extend the timeline for EchoStar to explore an acceptable resolution of the FCC’s stated concerns.”
EchoStar said on Friday that it was forgoing some other interest payments, citing uncertainty around the FCC review.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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