Dish Network has been wanting a bigger stake in wireless and has failed in its last two attempts. No Sprint and no Clearwire acquisition to show for all its effort. But they might not strike out and could find themselves picking up LightSquared. "According to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the
Southern District of New York, a group of LightSquared’s lenders have
called for an immediate auction of the company, naming Dish as the 'stalking horse' bidder for the spectrum." Whether Dish ultimately wins the final bid remains to be seen.
At the same time, I expect that Dish will still be pursuing another cellular player with T-Mobile seen as the next target. Such an acquisition would reshape Dish into a player with the resources to compete against other telcos and cable providers. Of course, there are some that hope that Dish and DirecTv combine to take on the cable players.
