{"id":128896,"date":"2025-09-08T13:42:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T13:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128896\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T13:42:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T13:42:06","slug":"mda-loses-1-8-billion-satellite-contract-with-echostar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128896\/","title":{"rendered":"MDA loses $1.8-billion satellite contract with EchoStar"},"content":{"rendered":"

MDA Space Ltd. MDA-T<\/a> has lost a $1.8-billion satellite contract with U.S. telecommunications company EchoStar Corp., announced in August, following a \u201csudden change\u201d to EchoStar\u2019s business strategy.<\/p>\n

EchoStar changed its plan following discussions about spectrum allocation with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and has now agreed to sell its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licences to SpaceX, MDA said in a press release Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The contract would have been for more than 100 5G satellites to extend EchoStar\u2019s satellite constellation connectivity to remote regions.<\/p>\n

SpaceX will now pay EchoStar $17-billion for the licences to expand its own low earth orbit constellation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis arbitrary development is completely unrelated to MDA Space performance and our products and services. The company will be compensated for all related termination costs and fees as per the EchoStar contract,\u201d MDA said in the release.<\/p>\n

The related amount hasn\u2019t yet been disclosed.<\/p>\n

MDA\u2019s stock jumped 18.4 per cent on Aug. 1, the day it announced the deal. It was the fourth in a series of similar contracts won by MDA Space in a little over three years. <\/p>\n

The contract included an option for EchoStar to expand its order to more than 200 satellites to fill out its initial constellation, which would have increased the contract value to $3.5-billion.<\/p>\n

MDA says it continues to have a $4.6-billion pipeline of additional LEO constellation opportunities.<\/p>\n

The about-face follows months of regulatory scrutiny from the FCC over whether EchoStar was meeting its obligations to deploy its 5G wireless spectrum, the airwaves that carry telecommunications signals, and a regulatory spat with SpaceX.<\/p>\n

In April, SpaceX pressed the government to force EchoStar to share its spectrum, arguing to the FCC in an April letter<\/a> that the EchoStar\u2019s subsidiary, DISH, was not adequately deploying its assets.<\/p>\n

David Goldman, SpaceX vice-president of satellite policy, alleged that DISH was using less than 5 per cent of what would be expected from wireless network operators, \u201cdespite years of false promises and dubious technical showings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commission should expeditiously welcome new entrants into the band and in parallel initiate a rulemaking to establish a modern, efficient sharing framework,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

EchoStar replied in its own letter<\/a> to the FCC days later that SpaceX\u2019s methodology was \u201ccompletely nonsensical\u201d calling it an attempt to \u201chijack\u201d competition and obtain more spectrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps SpaceX is confused because it has never publicly filed a detailed deployment report for the 15,000 MHz of spectrum it received free of charge from the Commission,\u201d wrote Jeffrey Blum, EchoStar\u2019s executive vice president of external and regulatory affairs.<\/p>\n

The FCC subsequently launched two probes to evaluate EchoStar\u2019s spectrum use. <\/p>\n

EchoStar sold some spectrum to telecom company AT&T Inc. to alleviate those concerns.<\/p>\n

With files from Pippa Norman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MDA Space Ltd. MDA-T has lost a $1.8-billion satellite contract with U.S. telecommunications company EchoStar Corp., announced in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,306,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-128896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}