01.28.14
Posted in DISH, Financials, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 2:22 pm by timfarrar
Although some guesswork is still required, today’s activity pretty much confirmed my view about where we stand with the H-block auction. In particular, I’m still convinced that there have been no significant bidders other than DISH since Round 1 and now there is no-one else left in the auction with more than a few million bidding units of eligibility at most. As a result, the auction should be completed, with DISH paying the minimum amount of $1.564B, by the end of this week or very early next.
Tomorrow or so we might still see the odd competing bid here and there, if one or two bidders jump into the few remaining blocks that have not yet received any bids, in order to preserve their remaining eligibility. However, DISH has made it very obvious to rivals that it will simply keep pushing up the price of licenses that receive competing bids (even raising its own winning bid) until any other bidder gives up. Moreover, in Rounds 16 and 17 there were no longer any competing bids whatsoever in the auction.
The table below shows the decline in the number of competing bids and how the last few remaining competitors switched to low priced licenses in the earlier rounds today, prior to stopping further bids. As I noted yesterday, it looks like someone other than DISH (probably a financial speculator) put in bids for NY and LA in Round 1, but then seeing how little competition there was, gave up on any more bidding. That’s logical, because unless there is a critical mass of other bidders, DISH can simply target its firepower on any smaller bidder until that player stops bidding (or is prepared to pay $0.50/MHzPOP plus for its target licenses).
Thus, by sometime tomorrow morning, it looks like no other players will have any remaining eligibility and it will be left to DISH to raise the price step by step to the $1.564B minimum price and the auction will be done. Indeed that seems to already be happening, with DISH renewing its bidding on NY and LA in Round 17 as any potential competition ebbed away. Then we will be able to move on to renewed speculation about DISH’s plans, and whether a deal with Sprint will be announced soon. After all, leasing the H-block to Sprint as part of that deal would be an entirely logical path for DISH to take.
UPDATE (1/29): Today’s bidding threw up a few more medium-sized licenses that had been held by other bidders since the early rounds of the auction, notably in Minneapolis and Las Vegas, which DISH turned its attention to after bidding up NY & LA in Rounds 17 and 18 and Boston, DC, Chicago, Dallas and SF in Rounds 19 and 20. The sequence of bids in these licenses is not incompatible with DISH and one other player bidding actively against one another, as some other commentators have suggested is the case. However, that would not be aligned with DISH’s signaling strategy in other licenses (of overbidding its own winning bid, until competitors got the message and gave up, seen in the chart as a yellow cell followed by one or more green cells) and would also require the competing bidder to have won both NY and LA in the first round (only 25% probability, due to the random allocation of licenses between equal bids).
As a result, I conclude that it is more likely that DISH has been bidding against itself for most major licenses and has left a few winning bids from competitors alone until it has bid up the other desirable cities so far that it would be unappealing to switch to them. Now DISH is concentrating its firepower on a few smaller licenses, the increase in total bids (now at $781M) has actually been slower than yesterday, suggesting that it will take 3 or 4 more days before the auction finishes. The chart of licenses with multiple bids is as follows:
Many may now wonder if DISH’s spectrum (and that held by others such as LightSquared) should be revalued downwards, because of the low price of the H-block. That’s not unexpected (and indeed exactly what I predicted last month), but in my view DISH’s real asset value is in its potential “towers” (i.e. satellite TV antennas) not in the spectrum itself. DISH’s spectrum holdings may no longer be worth $10B, but if DISH can monetize its antennas (say 1M sites at $100/month) via a fixed broadband network deployment, then there is a very clear alternative source for $10B in incremental value.
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01.27.14
Posted in DISH, Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 3:10 pm by timfarrar
No, not LightSquared, although a renewed auction, with no contingencies associated with FCC approval, does now seem like the most plausible way forward for the company. The big issue is then whether Ergen/SPSO’s debt holding are subordinated as a result of the recent trial: if he is then it might not require much more than a $1.2B credit bid for the debtholders to take control of the company, although in those circumstances I’d still expect Ergen to come back with a rival (personal) bid for the assets so that he doesn’t lose his $700M investment. However, if there is no subordination, then we may not see anyone outbidding Ergen even at a price of $1.5B-$2B (which would not repay the secured debtholders in full).
Actually I’m more interested in the lack of competitive bidding in the H-block auction, which slowed even further today. So far, after Round 12, only $456M has been bid for the licenses on offer, or less than 30% of DISH’s minimum bid commitment of $1564M. The bidding is anonymous, so its hard to tell whether two different bidders are bidding in turn for many of the licenses or if DISH is bidding against itself in order to reach the minimum commitment.
However, the evidence now points increasingly to it being the latter situation, after bidding on the New York and Los Angeles licenses (which had accounted for $216.5M or 56% of the total bids) stopped at the end of Round 8. Then bidding resumed on several other large cities, including Boston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, which had seen no bids since Round 1. The coordinated nature of this switching could mean that DISH faces a single large opponent, who ceased bidding on New York and Los Angeles and used its eligibility to bid for these other cities instead.
Instead, it seems more likely that DISH has been bidding against itself since the early rounds of the auction, because DISH has committed to bid $0.50/MHzPOP on average across the country and the bids have only reached $0.51 in New York and $0.41 in Los Angeles. Obviously any opponent would have had to have been prepared to bid rather more than $0.50/MHzPOP to win the licenses in NY or LA, and even if the objective of a DISH opponent was actually to pick up less expensive licenses in other cities, it would have been necessary to force DISH to bid more than $0.50/MHzPOP in NY and LA so that DISH could reach its committed minimum bid threshold without owning all of the licenses nationwide.
If we look at all of the 24 licenses that have attracted competing bids at any stage during the auction, as shown in the chart below, we can see that virtually all of the competitive bidding has been confined to a few small areas, notably in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, where 10 licenses (including Denver and Salt Lake City) have seen multiple bids. There has also been another smaller cluster of activity in Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia.
It is particularly notable that DISH appears to have been deterring any rival bids through multiple rounds of incremental bidding, regardless of whether it holds the license (which is randomly assigned between equal competing bids), until any competitors have demonstrably given up, as seen in the repeated rounds of multiple bids (note competitors with no minimum bid requirement would not overbid themselves, but DISH would be happy to do that while it remains below the minimum bidding threshold).
My suspicion is that the same factor may have been in play in New York and Los Angeles, where a token competitive bid was mounted in the first round, and then DISH’s one or more major rival(s) dropped out of the auction, leaving only a handful of small regional players to fight a doomed battle with DISH over a few insignificant licenses like North Platte and Scottsbluff, NE. If that were not the case, then we would again have seen DISH make overbids when it held the NY or LA license itself and that would have manifested itself in two competing bids being made for these licenses if a competitor were present. The fact that no competing bids were offered in NY and LA after Round 1 strongly suggests that no competitors were bidding against DISH for these licenses after that point.
Even more significant than the slowing increase in overall bids (where the determining factor is clearly DISH bidding against itself), the increase in total bids for once contested licenses today has been only $1M-$2M per round, demonstrating that virtually no-one is still fighting against DISH. DISH therefore appears well set to capture all of the H-block licenses in the country that it wants, as it has enough spare eligibility to bid for all of these licenses (including those still held by the FCC) for many rounds to come. The fact that the FCC has now increased the pace of the auction to 5 rounds per day, starting Tuesday, also supports the view that DISH is the only bidder for most licenses and most other participants have dropped out.
Taking a wider view, many commentators will undoubtedly try and explain away the results of the H-block auction as an aberration, due to the lack of major competitors for DISH. However, even if you accept that view (and ignore the fact that an unprecedented amount of spectrum is being made available through auctions this year and next, which is likely to change the balance of demand and supply significantly), it still doesn’t give much comfort to those who believe that spectrum is a scarce, appreciating asset. After all, this auction has demonstrated that if, like LightSquared, you don’t have many buyers for your spectrum, you’re not going to be able to realize a high price for that asset.
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01.18.14
Posted in DISH, Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 6:16 pm by timfarrar
It seems that contrary to Phil Falcone’s testimony on Thursday, its not true that “if you talk to anybody, they’ll tell you LightSquared will get the FCC license” at least if that “anybody” is FCC Chairman Wheeler (who of course did talk to LightSquared just before Christmas). It seems he wanted to send that message loud and clear with a Friday evening court filing, telling Judge Chapman that:
“The FCC is not in a position to confirm whether it will able to complete the work required to act on each of the conditions specified in the FCC Exit Condition before December 31, 2014. It is also impossible to predict what decisions the Commission may reach on these matters.”
The filing went on to explain that the first Exit Condition in the LightSquared bankruptcy plan (which requires approval for use of LightSquared’s 20MHz of uplink spectrum) “is not solely within the FCC’s control” because “the FCC coordinates certain spectrum-related matters with the NTIA, which in turn consults with all federal stakeholders through the Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Committee.”
That’s particularly important in view of a Bloomberg article earlier this month which indicated that “The Transportation Department, whose concerns that the LightSquared network could affect airliner navigation helped kill the company’s original plan, is withholding assent from the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee.” So in effect, the FCC is saying that if the DoT/FAA veto is maintained (and remember they would have to walk back the prediction that LightSquared’s operations could cause 800 deaths), it will not approve LightSquared’s application.
In addition, the filing noted that with respect to the second Exit Condition (which requires LightSquared to have gained approval to use the 10MHz of downlink spectrum between 1670-80MHz) “the FCC will need to conduct a notice-and-comment rulemaking process…[which] will include issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”), seeking comments from the public and adopting a Report and Order to allocate, develop service rules for and assign the [1675-80MHz] spectrum. At this time, it is not possible to provide any assurances that the processes outlined herein will be completed by December 31, 2014.”
This intervention potentially throws the LightSquared bankruptcy into chaos, and could leave Judge Chapman in a near impossible position, because as the FCC emphasized “Under the Revised Second Amended Plan, if the Effective Date has not occurred on or before December 31, 2014, the Plan shall be null and void.” We’ve already had DISH withdraw its bid, and as I noted the other day, it looks very much like DISH has alternative deals in mind. Commitments were also due on the LightSquared exit financing on Friday, and the FCC’s intervention could make the status of that financing even more uncertain.
So the question now is whether there is any feasible plan for Judge Chapman to confirm at this point in time? If she decides there is not, perhaps she could order the company to resume the auction of assets, this time without any conditionality on FCC approval. Would that mean Ergen jumping back in with a personal bid at a lower price? After all he suggested on Monday that had been a possibility, backed by a loan against his stake in EchoStar. Would the other LP debtholders compete against him (and put up cash to buy him out) if they weren’t going to get paid off at par plus accrued interest as they expected a few days ago?
Worryingly for LightSquared’s own reorganization plan, if the FCC intervention, which few expected at this point in time, is regarded as a direct smackdown in response to Falcone’s comments in court, that again raises the question of how big a “Phil risk premium” needs to be attached to the regulatory process, if Falcone maintains a substantial ownership stake in the company (even if he is no longer involved on a day-to-day basis, which seems to be the intent of the Fortress-backed plan).
After all, Senator Grassley (who has been a vocal critic of how “the FCC nearly granted billions of dollars in taxpayer assets to someone accused by our nation’s financial regulator of having ‘victimized’ ‘clients and market participants alike’ and leading a ‘graduate school course in how to operate a hedge fund unlawfully’”) was only too happy to give a statement for Bloomberg’s recent story about the lack of progress in Washington, and I’m sure that he won’t remain silent about any future FCC approvals while Phil remains involved with LightSquared.
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01.16.14
Posted in DISH, Financials, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, Sprint at 5:27 pm by timfarrar
After all the back and forth in court this week, with testimony from Charlie Ergen and Phil Falcone about Ergen’s purchases of LightSquared debt, the casual reader could be forgiven for thinking that this is still a battle between the two of them for control of LightSquared. However, a court filing from LBAC today emphasized that DISH is withdrawing its bid and if their argument (that DISH’s bid is not locked-up) stands, it appears that the Ad Hoc Committee will have an uphill task in moving to confirm a plan based on sale of the assets.
Instead, if LightSquared can get sufficient commitments tomorrow so that the $2.5B of new debt needed to back its reorganization plan is in place (contingent of course on FCC approval), then both Ergen and DISH appear happy to step back and wait to see what happens. If the FCC did give LightSquared the approvals it wants, which Falcone has “a pretty good feeling about” (mirroring his confidence back in 2011 that GPS interference issues could easily be solved), then Ergen would get repaid with interest (assuming he wins the current trial), and if the FCC refused (or declined to rule), then he could come back with another (lower) bid later on.
What’s far more intriguing is why DISH now seems to regard LightSquared as dispensable, at least for the time being. Remember that Ergen testified DISH only became interested in LightSquared as a backup plan once it became clear DISH would not succeed in buying Sprint or Clearwire. In addition, rebanding the AWS-4 uplinks to downlinks and pairing with LightSquared’s uplinks would delay any network deployment by at least a couple of years.
So it seems highly likely that Ergen has another plan in mind, which DISH will move to implement soon after the H-block auction is complete. There are repeated rumors about a Sprint bid for T-Mobile and an expectation that DISH would mount a counterbid. But it still seems that Sprint would have a tough job getting regulatory approval.
BTIG seem to think that a asset sale by Sprint to DISH would be one solution (what assets this would be is unclear, but we suspect DISH’s main objective would be to get hold of Clearwire spectrum, not a retail wireless business, and Sprint doesn’t need to buy T-Mobile for its spectrum). But isn’t a direct Sprint/DISH partnership a simpler solution, with a Sprint bid for T-Mobile acting as a backstop option if a deal with DISH falls through?
Its surprising how few people really seem to have grasped what DISH’s key asset is, namely that its 14M potential towers (i.e. rooftop satellite dishes) are at least as valuable as its spectrum (and perhaps more so, since using the AWS-4 spectrum for a fixed wireless broadband network wouldn’t be a very high value use).
Consider for example, a wireless broadband network deployed to 20% of DISH’s current customer base (2.8M households), let along the 8.5M targeted in DISH’s April 2013 Sprint bid proposal. If DISH can rent even a fraction of this tower space for $100 per month (compared to the $1700 or so that is charged by traditional tower companies) to Sprint to host its 2.5GHz small cell buildout, then that could generate at least $1B per year of incremental cashflow, with little or no offsetting costs (remember the power and space is provided by the homeowner). Moreover, DISH’s best use of its money would then be to try and buy DirecTV, offering a national broadband fixed wireless competitor and ensuring that AT&T couldn’t gain a similar buildout opportunity via DirecTV’s satellite dishes.
We’ll see what happens in the H-block auction next week, but even that may not be particularly critical to DISH’s near term plans, and I’d expect DISH could be quite content to be outbid on many licenses by non-strategic investors. Then regardless of what happens to LightSquared in the next few weeks (and things may go at least somewhat quiet for much of this year while the company makes yet another effort to secure FCC approval), my bet is that we’ll be hearing a lot more about Ergen’s wireless plans in the next few months.
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01.09.14
Posted in DISH, Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, Sprint at 9:42 am by timfarrar
The announcement today that DISH is pulling its bid for LightSquared has thrown what was already a massively complicated and controversial bankruptcy case further into chaos, as we start the trial on whether Ergen’s purchase of LightSquared debt was illegitimate (and warm-up for a lengthy contested confirmation hearing over the next 3 weeks). Of course, the withdrawal of the bid completely undercuts LightSquared and Harbinger’s arguments that Ergen always knew DISH would come in and buy out his debt holdings and it will be interesting to see the effect on this part of the trial. Thus the withdrawal is certainly a logical move simply for that reason alone.
However, as we move forward into confirmation, there are two further possibilities to be considered. If DISH’s move is simply a strategic maneuver to undercut LightSquared’s lawsuit against Ergen, then it would be logical to expect DISH would ultimately give in when the debtholders attempt to force specific performance of the Asset Purchase Agreement (assuming the Ad Hoc debtholder reorganization plan is approved by the judge).
A second more intriguing alternative is that DISH and Sprint might be nearing a partnership deal, under which Sprint could use DISH’s satellite TV antennas (backhauled via a fixed wireless network using AWS-4 spectrum) for a 2.5GHz small cell hosting strategy in suburban and rural areas and DISH would resell Sprint wireless services. After all, if there is a near term deal to move forward with a wireless partner and an AWS-4 buildout, then the rebanding and delay associated with a DISH acquisition of LightSquared would probably cause more problems than it solves.
Certainly a hiatus in negotiations between DISH and Sprint seemed to be behind the leaks before Christmas that Sprint was planning a bid for T-Mobile and DISH’s rejoinder that it would consider a rival bid. Indeed one could view AT&T’s recent offer of a $450 incentive to T-Mobile customers as an attempt to kill any prospects of regulatory approval for a Sprint/T-Mobile tie-up. So from that point of view, Sprint’s only viable big move in the near term is a deal with DISH, and I’m told large scale deployment of such a network could double the total wireless network capacity available in the world today.
Another factor worth considering is that DISH’s move creates further uncertainty for the H-block auction as well, because (especially after Echostar’s purchase of Solaris, which has overlapping 2GHz band spectrum in Europe at 1995-2010MHz uplink and 2185-2200MHz downlink) the possibility that DISH will not decide to switch its AWS-4 uplinks to downlinks is back on the table.
Nevertheless, even if DISH doesn’t buy LightSquared, and no deal is ultimately worked out with Sprint, DISH could still come back and buy the 1695-1710MHz unpaired uplink spectrum in the FCC auction later this summer, likely at a lower price (and with rather less risk) than it would be taking with LightSquared – as unpaired uplink this band will probably sell for around $0.30 to $0.40/MHzPOP unless AT&T and DISH both bid aggressively against one another. So DISH certainly still has many spectrum options left on the table this year.
Today and tomorrow the LightSquared hearing will involve live testimony from both Ergen and Falcone about the debt purchases. Given that DISH’s maneuver has now undercut many of Harbinger’s arguments, and Ergen still seems to have plenty of cards up his sleeve, it will be interesting to see just how far Phil is out of depth in this great game.
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12.20.13
Posted in DISH, Financials, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 3:19 pm by timfarrar
As we head towards the holiday season, LightSquared’s attempts to find an alternative to being bought by Charlie Ergen are becoming ever more desperate, as the December 24 deadline to put forward an alternative plan approaches and the company takes a “time machine back to the summer…to formulate from scratch their own refinancing plan
…like the failed effort with Jefferies.”
Reuters is reporting the terms of a $2B-$2.5B three year term loan to back a Fortress-sponsored exit plan as including 12% interest, all paid-in-kind, with an additional unspecified amount of equity injected into the company (presumably mostly achieved through rolling over existing investments). Unless a substantial amount of warrants are also included in this deal, the terms appear worse than those offered by Jefferies (and rejected by investors) back in July, which comprised mostly cash pay interest plus an ongoing ticking fee and substantial warrants.
We find it hard to imagine that the judge will be happy with a proposal which involves waiting another 6-9 months for an FCC decision, with no certainty at the end of the process, and which would presumably result in DISH terminating its non-contingent cash offer. Remember that there are numerous other uncertainties in the near future as well, including the resolution of LightSquared’s Mexican coordination negotiations, the Cooperation Agreement with Inmarsat, LightSquared’s difficult relationship with the DoD (which led to the termination of a contract accounting for one third of LightSquared’s total satellite revenue earlier this year) and most importantly the unprecedented amount of spectrum that will be auctioned by the FCC in 2014 and 2015. All of these issues are discussed in detail in our new 49 page LightSquared profile, released yesterday – please get in touch if you are interested in purchasing a copy.
The AWS-1 auction in 2006 provides one good example of how large amounts of new spectrum coming to the market can have a major effect on the perceived value of spectrum. Take for example ICO’s July 2005 Offering Memorandum, which suggested its spectrum was worth $1.64/MHzPOP, whereas after 2006, ICO had to use an AWS-1 benchmark instead (in that case the most optimistic number that could be justified was $0.73/MHzPOP for the 20MHz F-block spectrum).
One of the underrated issues that is still to play out in the bankruptcy (and a key sticking point in negotiation of DISH’s proposed Asset Purchase Agreement) was that DISH’s bid included acquiring all of the litigation rights of the LightSquared estate. The most obvious effect that would have is on LightSquared’s lawsuit against Ergen for buying up its debt. However, it would also have significant consequences for the suit against the GPS industry and potential litigation against the FCC: whereas LightSquared soon may have nothing to lose by employing scorched Earth tactics, we suspect DISH would look for a compromise that would be acceptable to all parties. Finally, DISH could even sue Harbinger on behalf of LightSquared investors who lost money as a result of the “guarantees” that there was no GPS interference problem whatsoever.
We should soon know if this will be Phil’s last gasp, so just like the Delorean above, he will find himself “OUTATIME” or if we will have many months more of uncertainty about the FCC process. Either way, it looks like it is no longer FCC Chairman Wheeler who will have an unhappy Christmas, but instead it will be Judge Chapman, who is charged with resolving the LightSquared bankruptcy case and now has to determine just how much of LightSquared’s “alarming and reckless” efforts to fend off DISH she will tolerate.
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10.21.13
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, LDR, Maritime, Operators, Services at 9:33 am by timfarrar
I won’t belabor the errors of physics in the movie, instead just noting that even though you might think that in space things can keep going in a straight line indefinitely, they are still subject to gravity and you can’t get to a higher orbit without some form of propulsion.
We’ve now seen confirmation from Iridium of what I pointed out last week, that Q3 was very bad for the MSS industry. Iridium missed its expectations for equipment revenues (i.e. handset sales) and subscriber growth (i.e. M2M net adds), although at least the government contract renewal is more favorable than expected – the unlimited nature of the contract removes the incentive for the DoD to scrub its user base to remove unused handsets, which has been a headwind for Iridium in the last couple of years.
Its far from clear that anyone else is doing better: it looks like Iridium’s competitors also saw pretty poor handset sales in Q3 and the SPOT 3 has been very slow to arrive in stores as well. Moreover, the government business is dire – Intelsat’s profit warning (which included its off-net business reselling MSS) is a bad sign for Inmarsat, as are the large scale layoffs in Astrium’s government business last week.
Inmarsat has now followed up its promise not to raise FleetBB prices in 2014 with an enormous 48% rise in maritime E&E prices from January, in an attempt to sustain maritime revenue growth next year. While the stated intention is to persuade the remaining pay as you go customers to move off the E&E network and choose FleetBB instead, the vast majority of higher spending B and Fleet customers have already migrated and many of the remaining users are mini-M voice-only users or really want the PAYG service because they are only occasional users, so FleetBB is not necessarily the ideal option.
Inmarsat is clearly calculating that these customers won’t want to risk moving to Iridium after the OpenPort problems earlier this year and has stepped up its efforts to portray Iridium’s network as “failing”. Despite all this, no-one believes that Inmarsat could possibly achieve its 8%-12% revenue growth target for 2014 and I expect this to be “softened” in the near future as well. Inmarsat is also likely to emphasize its opportunities for internal cost savings next year and move to dispose of some retail business units like Segovia.
Its interesting to speculate about implications for the wider satellite industry as well. Last time around (in 1999-2003), problems in the MSS industry were a harbinger of a downturn in the FSS industry a couple of years later. That came in the wake of a peak in satellite orders in the 1999-2001 timeframe and after the launch of these satellites, which resulted in a sharp decline in prices, the FSS industry took a big hit. We’ve seen a similar peak in orders in recent years (2009-10), and while the major operators are much more likely to retain pricing discipline (in a far more consolidated industry than a decade ago), the advent of High Throughput Satellites, especially those owned by smaller players like Avanti (who might become the most desperate for contracts), could pressure prices in certain market segments and geographies.
Just as an example, in recent years, underlying transponder demand has grown at roughly 4% p.a., but revenues have been boosted by around 2% p.a. by price rises. Even if demand growth continues (not a foregone conclusion in some sectors like government where WGS is an alternative), a reversal of the pricing trend would certainly make a big difference to the FSS revenue outlook. As I said at the beginning of this post, gravity clearly exerts a force, even in space.
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10.14.13
Posted in DISH, Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, Sprint at 10:51 am by timfarrar
As others have noted, in order to get a 700MHz interoperability deal, which will largely benefit Verizon and AT&T (as AT&T are now the only plausible national user of the A block spectrum and are likely to acquire both Verizon and Leap’s spectrum holdings in this band), DISH has secured a pretty good deal in Washington from interim FCC Chairman Clyburn: in exchange for DISH agreeing to low power use of the 700MHz E block (and bidding $0.50 per MHzPOP in the H block auction), DISH appears set to obtain an option to reband its AWS-4 uplinks to downlinks and an extension of the AWS-4 buildout milestones.
UPDATE (11/13): T-Mobile is raising $2B for spectrum purchases and is now rumored to be contemplating a bid for Verizon’s 700MHz A block spectrum. This would only give T-Mobile a 5x5MHz LTE network, which would not add much capacity in urban areas, but if T-Mobile is seeking to improve its rural coverage then it would have to buy other A block licenses as well.
This gives DISH a significant advantage both in the upcoming LightSquared bankruptcy auction, where no-one really expects any alternative bidder to emerge for the L-band spectrum, because the FCC has all but guaranteed it will not propose the so-called spectrum “swap” that LightSquared has asked for: it’s understood that Ergen will simply drop the request when he buys LightSquared’s satellite assets, so there is no point in the FCC annoying those in Congress who would want to see the 1675-80MHz spectrum band auctioned instead.
More importantly, if DISH is given an option but not an obligation to reband the AWS-4 uplinks (DISH has asked for 30 months to decide, but I would expect the FCC to only allow 12-18 months at most), then it also has a huge advantage in the H-block auction, because if Sprint were to win the spectrum then DISH could hold up standardization of the band (and delay any ability for Sprint to use the H block to relieve capacity constraints in its PCS G block LTE network). After years of experience in being held hostage by Ergen, its therefore hardly surprising that the smart move for Sprint will be to let DISH have the H block at the reserve price. That will force DISH to drive the standardization efforts, and potentially even allow Sprint to put roadblocks in DISH’s way instead of vice versa.
UPDATE (11/13): Both T-Mobile and Sprint have now ruled out bidding for the H-block spectrum. So it seems that both have made the smart move by leaving Ergen to contemplate what to do with ~80MHz of spectrum and no partners.
Moreover, it will establish a low benchmark price for the rest of DISH’s spectrum holdings, well below the $1.00 per MHzPOP that many analysts have been touting recently, and Ergen will then have doubled his bets on spectrum to roughly $8B, when taking into account both the LightSquared and H-block spectrum, without any clear route to monetization. With AT&T focused on European expansion and Verizon encumbered by the debt from buying out Vodafone’s stake, Sprint could then hope to hold the whiphand in any partnership negotiations with DISH.
Indeed next year’s auctions of 70MHz of additional spectrum (AWS-3, 1695-1710MHz and J block) may further impact perceptions of spectrum value: a $0.50 per MHzPOP valuation will again be ample to cover the costs of clearance plus the $7B needed to fund FirstNet. That is the FCC’s key objective in the upcoming spectrum auctions, so it can limit AT&T and Verizon’s participation in the 2015 broadcast TV incentive auction and ensure that Sprint and T-Mobile gain sufficient low frequency spectrum to preserve a four player market after the next presidential election. Once no net revenues need to be raised from the incentive auction, then it won’t matter if AT&T and Verizon refuse to participate, as that would simply keep the price low for Sprint and T-Mobile (or ensure that not as much broadcast spectrum is cleared).
However, rather than negotiating with Sprint on their terms, I expect that Ergen will instead pursue a merger with DirecTV, as an alternative to any wireless partnership, and I still expect a commitment to build out a fixed wireless broadband network with rural coverage to be key to getting regulatory approval for such a deal. Nevertheless, if DirecTV doesn’t put as much value on DISH’s spectrum holdings as Ergen does, it may be difficult to reach agreement on the respective value of the two companies. As a result, while Ergen builds his tower of spectrum cards ever higher, it will be interesting to see whether investors stay confident that he can ultimately create substantial value from these holdings.
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Posted in Financials, Globalstar, Government, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, LDR, Operators, Orbcomm, Services at 10:03 am by timfarrar
Incredible…it’s even worse than I thought
That’s been the reaction to my 57 page Globalstar profile, released on Friday (you can see the contents list here and get an order form here), because of the history of challenges that the MSS industry has faced in the past and more particularly the difficulties that the industry is seeing this year.
After discussions with a number of people in the industry over the last few weeks, it looks like Q3 has been pretty disastrous for MSS sales across the board, with none of the usual surge in demand expected in the summer months, as customers stock up to prepare for outdoor adventures or potential hurricanes. Part of that relates to slow government orders, as a result of the sequester (predating the current shutdown), but commercial demand has also been poor, and that’s much harder to explain.
In the handheld segment, one suggestion is that Hurricane Sandy proved that terrestrial cellphone networks are now considerably more reliable during disasters (and far more data capable than MSS phones), so companies are no longer giving as high a priority to MSS equipment in their disaster planning. In the M2M segment, a fairly convincing explanation is that service providers who formerly specialized in MSS are now focusing more and more on selling cellular-based solutions to customers who find they don’t need MSS as a backup.
As a result, I’m now convinced that subscriber growth (and equipment sales) will fall short of expectations this year, particularly in the handheld and M2M segments, for almost all of the major MSS players, with knock-on effects for subscriber revenues in Q4 and more particularly next year. The defense business also looks poor (as shown by Intelsat’s recent profit warning): the word on the street is that Inmarsat may dispose of its Segovia government FSS business, as revenues in Inmarsat’s US Government business unit fell by 11% year-on-year in the first half of 2013 and appear to have eroded further in recent months, particularly in Segovia’s VSAT business. The sale price would be a fraction of what Inmarsat paid for Segovia, but in exchange Inmarsat would hope to secure a GX airtime contract, similar to its RigNet deal in the energy sector.
In the case of Globalstar, the implications of the MSS downturn are that while Globalstar should be able to meet the new bank case revenue forecasts, it won’t be easy to beat them. However, unlike some other players, Globalstar is fortunate in having the potential upside from monetizing its spectrum, if it can complete a deal with Amazon or another company. The report looks at spectrum valuation for both LTE and TLPS and concludes that there could be substantial value for Globalstar, although realizing this will require both rapid approval from the FCC and for a deal to be struck fairly quickly, before new spectrum bands such as 3550-3650MHz develop an alternative ecosystem at what will likely be much lower prices. If you are interested in getting a copy, please contact me for more details.
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09.23.13
Posted in DISH, Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 9:34 am by timfarrar
Tomorrow’s hearing in the LightSquared bankruptcy case was supposed to be the showdown at which the judge would decide between LightSquared’s own proposed bidding procedures (which attempt to reject Ergen’s $2.2B bid for the company) and the alternative bidding procedures which have now been proposed jointly by the LP and Inc secured creditors (and would accept Ergen’s stalking horse bid). However, LightSquared has appointed an independent committee of its directors (including a new member, Donna Alderman, who fought with DISH over the resolution to the DBSD case) and this committee (whose independence is disputed by the LP creditors) has requested that the hearing be delayed until September 30.
Of course, no-one is taking seriously the alternative plan proposed by Harbinger, which would simply keep the existing debt in place (converting it to PIK interest) and allow Harbinger to stay in charge, but LightSquared’s plan would allow it to deem a non-cash bid, contingent on FCC approval, superior to DISH’s cash bid, which could potentially further delay a resolution of the case. In contrast, under the secured creditors plan, any competing bid must be non-conditional on FCC approval, making it hard to see how any strategic buyer could emerge – although since potential bidders have already had two months to make an offer, and none have done so, it is likely that no-one else other than Ergen is actually interested.
LightSquared spent last week groveling to the FCC, suggesting that “The current stalking horse bid might be the only one submitted, if the FCC does not make its decisions quickly, because the company’s assets cannot be fully valued until the Commission acts on the pending modification applications.” However, the FCC’s recent grand bargain with DISH and AT&T over the 700MHz A and E blocks, AWS-4 downlinks, and the PCS H block auction makes it pretty clear that the FCC would prefer DISH as a buyer of the LightSquared assets, so that just the L-band uplinks would be used, rather than Harbinger getting a spectrum “swap” (which in reality would represent another windfall and lead to more criticism in Congress).
Given Phil’s troubles with the SEC, its hardly surprising that Chairman Mignon Clyburn would now choose DISH over Harbinger. That’s in contrast to my post last year asking if Phil was finally right about something with his comment that “Everyone knows Ergen is not going to build out a network. No one trusts him, including the FCC. They are not going to put their eggs in that basket because they know he will make them look foolish” (which prompted this response).
Harbinger’s attempt last month to sue the GPS industry for $1.9B also appears to have backfired, with LightSquared creditors pointing out that Harbinger was violating the bankruptcy exclusivity order by asserting claims of the estate. Moreover, this action, coming immediately after the FCC put LightSquared’s request for uplink approval on public notice, appeared likely to delay rather than expedite any regulatory approval from the FCC. Not only has Phil therefore caused further angst in the bankruptcy case, but I’m told that he is also struggling to find a credible plaintiffs firm to take the lawsuit forward, while the GPS industry have hired Boies Schiller to fight their side of the case. So perhaps now is the time to ask if Phil can get anything right?
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