By Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
EchoStar Corporation announced today that it finalized its purchase of Dish Network on the last day of December. Following the merger, which the companies announced in August, Dish is now a “wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar,” and why? 5G, dear reader.
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. 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 US with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. As of late 2022, when we last tested it out, it wasn’t quite impressive yet.
EchoStar’s COO, John Swieringa, said in the release…