Weeks after withdrawing a $2.2 billion bid to buy bankrupt LightSquared and its 4G spectrum, Charlie Ergen is about to win a government auction for the so-called H Block of spectrum, The Post has learned.
The $1.56 billion acquisition, expected to be announced this week, a source close to the situation said, will make Ergen’s Dish Networks the fifth-biggest spectrum owner.
“This spectrum is a big win for Dish, and a lost opportunity for Sprint,” the source said.
The spectrum acquisition will make Dish — the second-biggest US satellite TV provider — look a lot more like a wireless company, the source said.
Dish’s current spectrum holdings are adjacent to the H Block it is poised to acquire.
It is not known if Ergen’s Dish will use the spectrum to compete against Verizon and other wireless carriers or lease it to another company, perhaps Google, which may be looking to get into the wireless business.
“Ergen could also flip the [H Block] spectrum,” the source said.
Sensing it could more easily win the H Block auction (since no other major wireless carrier was bidding) may have played a role in Ergen dropping his LightSquared bid.
The H Block auction, one of three spectrum sales the government will undertake, started Jan. 22 and has lasted more than 120 rounds.
Washington divided the country into 176 districts, and Dish could end up snagging all of them.
Dish declined to comment.