Satellite television pioneer Charlie Ergen has reunited his empire, having on December 31 completed the merger of Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. Ergen co-founded both companies and served as chairman of each prior to the merger. He now becomes executive chairman of the combined operation. Former EchoStar chief Hamid Akhavan was named president and CEO of the two companies in November and continues as operational head. Ergen feels his satellite infrastructure is well-situated for 5G. He plans to move the unified firm away from pay TV and into wireless services, competing with Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T.

“Dish’s rationale for the merger likely centers on tapping EchoStar’s roughly $2 billion in cash and modest free cash flow,” Bloomberg Intelligence telecom analysts John Butler and Hunter Sacco said on Bloomberg, noting that challenges still remain in the form of “well-funded incumbent rivals” and “over $14 billion in debt maturing over the next three years.”

The Bloomberg analysts peg EchoStar’s cash at $1.9 billion estimates free cash flow at $265 million.

When Ergen announced the merger in August he positioned it as a stepping stone toward building a next-generation nationwide wireless network.

“The cellular-to-satellite market, which started off hot in late 2022, is currently in a bit of a transition,” is how Fierce Wireless contextualizes the deal. Recent developments include Qualcomm’s November decision to pull out of a direct-to-device (D2D) Android smartphone service with partner Iridium Communications.

“Qualcomm said its decision was due to smartphone makers preferring standards-based solutions instead of the proprietary solution that it had developed with Iridium,” Fierce Wireless writes.

Qualcomm’s sector exit “shouldn’t be viewed as a failure for the cell-to-sat market, but instead be chalked up to a business model problem,” according to Fierce Wireless, adding that analyst firm NSR “remains bullish on the satellite D2D area, projecting that it will generate a $137 billion cumulative service revenue opportunity between 2022 and 2032.”

“Dish Network was known as EchoStar until 2008 when it renamed itself to Dish and spun its satellite Internet business off under the EchoStar name,” The Verge explains, noting that “in recent years, Dish has been pivoting to 5G after buying Boost Mobile and starting Project Genesis, which, in concept, would offer a fourth large network to compete in the U.S. with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.”

For more information, visit the merger press release.