Dish Network has announced that it is seeking another $500 million in financing for its wireless network buildout, following on top of the nearly $2 billion that it sought in late 2022 for the same purpose.
The net proceeds of the debt offering “are intended to be used for general corporate purposes, including the buildout of wireless infrastructure,” with Dish spectrum assets as collateral.
Dish put together a similar financing arrangement in November of last year, only for a far larger sum of $2 billion.
According to Dish’s 8-K filing on the $500 million financing, the value of the company’s spectrum holdings was pegged at about $10 billion.
The 8-K also included preliminary operating numbers for Dish’s results for the full-year results as of December 31, 2022, which included closing out the year with 9.75 million pay-TV subscribers (and losses of 957,000 pay-TV subscribers for the year) as well as 7.98 million wireless subscriber and a loss of 576,000 wireless subs for the year. Dish reported a preliminary churn rate for the year of 4.46% for its wireless subscriber base.
Dish also said that as of December 31, it had “started construction on over 15,000 5G sites, which, if completed, are capable of providing broadband coverage to over 60% of the U.S. population.” Dish said it has construction starts at a rate of about 1,000 5G sites per month.
