Dish Network Picks Up All 176 H-Block Spectrum Licenses

The FCC’s H-block auction ended last Thursday after a month of bidding, which raised over $1.5 billion for the national treasury. Dish Network participated in the auction under its American H Block Wireless bidding entity and walked away with all 176 licenses up for auction. Most of the wireless industry’s larger players passed on the H-Block, instead focusing their efforts on the upcoming AWS-3 and 600 MHz incentive auction. According to Dan Meyer of RCR Wireless, “The H-Block licenses up for bid were adjacent to Dish Network’s 2 GHz spectrum licenses, with Dish Network now having control of a wider swath of spectrum in the upper 1.9 GHz/lower 2 GHz band to go along with its smaller holdings in the 700 MHz band. Dish Network had pledged to bid at least $1.5 billion for the 1.9 GHz H-Block spectrum set to come to auction next year if the FCC allows Dish to convert its current 2 GHz spectrum holdings to a single block for downlink use. Dish Network also made a proposal to reduce the power of its E-Block 700 MHz licenses in an attempt to reduce potential interference with the lower A-Block in exchange for an extension on the build out timeline for the E-Block.” Although Dish Network doesn’t currently compete in the wireless telecommunications space, there have been rumblings of the company looking to partner with T-Mobile.