EchoStar - Q3 2023
November 6, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the EchoStar Corporation third quarter 2023 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer. Please go ahead.
Dean Manson (Chief Legal Officer)
Thank you, Michelle. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call for the third quarter of 2023. I'm joined today by Hamid Akhavan, our CEO and President, Paul Gaske, our Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Boggs, Senior Vice President of Finance, and Veronika Takacs, our Chief Accounting Officer. As usual, we invite media to participate in a listen-only mode on the call and ask that you not identify participants or their firms in your report. We also do not allow audio recording, which we ask that you respect. All statements we make during this call, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to be materially different from historical results and from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For a list of those factors and risks, please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, filed on February 23rd, and our subsequent filings made with the SEC. All cautionary statements we make during the call should be understood as being applicable to any forward-looking statements we make wherever they appear. You should carefully consider the risks described in our reports and should not place any undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. We assume no responsibility for updating any forward-looking statements. We refer to adjusted EBITDA during this call.
The comparable GAAP measure and a reconciliation thereto are presented in our earnings release. I'll now turn the call over to Hamid.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Thank you, Dean, and good day, everyone. Our agenda for the call today is as follows. First, we'll provide a brief overview of financial activity from the third quarter. After that, we'll discuss our business strategy, which includes the three parallel work streams that I call Horizons and our progress on all three. We'll then move to question-and-answer session. But before we jump into the third quarter results, let me briefly highlight the announcement of our contract award with Delta Air Lines, signed in the fourth quarter, that will start among the leading in-flight connectivity providers. Delta Air Lines is known to be an industry leader with in-flight connectivity service and for conducting extensive competitive procurements. We are thrilled to have earned their confidence in being selected as a new Delta partner.
This new order is a major opportunity within the in-flight communications market that will increase our backlog and diversify our business. This is consistent with my statements in prior earnings calls regarding our continued focus on diversification and growth of our enterprise business. In addition, our Jupiter 3 satellite is in its final stages of in-orbit testing, and the satellite is on a schedule for service launch in December. Now, let's turn to our financials. As we have anticipated, nearing the end of Horizon One, the third quarter marks our low point as we enter our historically strong fourth quarter. Our revenue in the third quarter of 2023 was $413 million, lower by $84 million compared to the same period of the prior year.
The revenue decrease in the third quarter was partially driven by our consumer broadband business, which continues to be impacted by capacity constraints and other factors as we wait for our Jupiter 3 satellite to be in service. We also had a decrease in our enterprise revenue, primarily due to lower domestic and international deployments and shipments, which we expect to re-recognize in the fourth quarter and beyond. As I have shared before, most enterprise orders are recognized over several years, which we can create some variation or irregularity in our revenue profile, as we saw with the low point in the third quarter. We remain excited about opportunities within the enterprise market, a market that we believe will continue to allow us to better diversify our business, both domestically and internationally, and provide cash generation through low capital investment and a scalable operating leverage.
We are enthusiastic about our recent performance and a number of near-term prospects in the enterprise market and see that leading to an estimated enterprise backlog approaching $2 billion. Our adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter was $126 million, a decrease of 21% from last year, primarily driven by the lower revenue. We continue to focus on managing our cost to align with the change in the revenue mix to preserve our ability to generate cash. Capital expenditures, net of receipt of refunds in the quarter, was $79 million, compared to $61 million in Q3 of last year. The increase was primarily due to increase in expenditures on the J3 satellite program. Operating cash flow, defined as adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx, was $47 million during the quarter, $51 million lower than Q3 of last year.
We ended the quarter with $2 billion of cash and marketable securities. I remain confident about our strategic direction and expectation and execution plan, and our ability to generate healthy returns and cash to execute on many opportunities that are ahead of us. Let me now turn the call over to Paul, who will provide some additional specifics on the quarter and our Horizon One and Two activities.
Paul Gaske (COO)
Thank you, Hamid. Under our Horizon strategy that we have previously explained as dividing our strategic focus into three periods of time, near term Horizon One, midterm Horizon Two, and transformational Horizon Three, we're about to enter our Horizon Two as Jupiter 3 comes into service later this quarter. We will begin to focus on deploying the next generation HughesNet service across the Americas and continue the expansion of our global enterprise business, including the government sector and our managed services portfolio. During this midterm period, we also expect to be launching our hybrid LEO GEO enterprise solutions, as well as leveraging our own manufactured products to pursue growth and further diversification. Jupiter 3 reached its orbital slot earlier in Q3. The Maxar team has fully deployed all of its antennas, and Jupiter 3 is on track to begin transmission testing with our extensive ground system shortly.
We expect the satellite to enter into service in December. Once in service, Jupiter 3 will deliver new broadband services in North and South America and will allow us to focus quickly on addressing the continued demand for high-speed broadband service throughout the region. In preparation for the start of Jupiter 3 service, our consumer team is finalizing the development of new service plans with higher speeds and extension of our HughesNet Fusion for the ultimate high speed, low latency satellite internet experience. We believe the market is eager for these robust offerings, and we continue to compete with an attractive portfolio of service plans that will be simple to understand, aligned to our customers' needs. The market has reacted well to our Fusion service offering. We continue to see considerable percentage of our new subscribers select Fusion service, which is available on our highest ARPU plans.
The HughesNet Fusion plans have been well received by existing and new subscribers, and we expect to expand the service to help attract new customers and improve our overall economics as we launch Jupiter 3 service. While preparing for the launch of Jupiter 3, we remain focused on operational efficiencies, yield optimization of our North America satellite capacity, and further optimization of our subscriber acquisition strategies. Additionally, we continue to improve our cost and performance through the deployment of AI and ML automation, improved processes, supply efficiencies, of course, not compromising the end user experience. Moving to our North American enterprise business, we are entering Horizon Two with a very significant achievement.
As Hamid mentioned, we are thrilled to have completed a contract with Delta Air Lines to deploy our Hughes in-flight connectivity solution to deliver Wi-Fi and video services to passengers on more than 400 Boeing 717 and regional jets serving North America. Our solution utilizes the Jupiter satellite assets in a very innovative way to provide outstanding in-cabin communication service. We've been working extensively with Delta Air Lines team for a number of months and plan initial installations in mid-2024. This program marks a change in business strategy. After more than 20 years supporting numerous in-flight communications providers with our equipment support, we are now expanding to offer our unique in-flight communication solutions directly to commercial airlines. Regarding the Q3 North America enterprise results, we received several expansion and renewal orders from retailers and upgrade orders in the U.S. retail petroleum market.
In addition, Xplore placed a significant order for the terminals that will support their broadband services in Canada using Jupiter 3. In our OneWeb program, during the third quarter, we continued deliveries of production gateways and systems to meet the OneWeb service implementation plan. We have shipped more than 23,000 satellite subscriber modules for inclusion in OneWeb modems. We are seeing significant interest in our previously announced electronically steered antennas, or ESAs, from resellers, distribution partners, and direct customers. We expect factory shipments to begin this quarter, with initial units going to OneWeb for their customers, as well as to customers of our managed LEO service offering, featuring OneWeb capacity.
Our government and defense segment had a strong third quarter with follow-on orders from the U.S. Postal Service for broadband services in a number of their rural offices, the state of Pennsylvania for broadband services, and Boeing for their PTES program, along with add-ons to our DoD contract supporting the Navy for 5G systems enhancements for the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station Advanced Flight Line program, which we had previously delivered in the first half of the year. We also received an order from prime contractor SES Space & Defense in support of a new Air Force multi-orbit MEO and GEO program for airborne-based communications with software-defined networking, opening a new era for our defense-based communications products. Now to our international operations, we expect opportunities in cell backhaul and digital inclusion projects to continue to expand Horizon Two as companies and, governments extend their reach to underserved communities.
We believe our Jupiter system remains the de facto standard in broadband GEO satellite communications globally, and our new LEO ESA for use on OneWeb allows us to strongly compete for these new opportunities going forward. In Latin America, the new Jupiter 3 capacity will allow us to expand our enterprise services for a number of upcoming such projects. In Mexico, we've seen continued expansion of cell backhaul and digital inclusion projects, with additional locations as well as additional capacity. Throughout Latin America, we've added over 1,300 schools, leveraging our equipment and Jupiter capacity. In Asia, we also see similar opportunities for cell backhaul and digital inclusion projects. As an example, in last quarter in India, we fulfilled a second order from Airtel for 4G backhaul, supporting a significant USO project in Maharashtra. We are also upgrading the Indian Army's battlefield surveillance system to Jupiter technology.
While in Central Asia, we were awarded and have delivered a Jupiter system that will provide internet services to remote communities. In Southeast Asia, we've received an order for a Jupiter system for use on a high-throughput satellite. Lastly, in Latin America consumer business, we look forward to the commencement of services on Jupiter 3, which is expected in the first quarter of next year. This will allow us to serve additional customers in areas with high demand, as well as to enhance the user experience for both new and existing customers. Now, let me turn the call back to Hamid.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Thank you, Paul, for the summary of our Horizon One and Two activities from the third quarter of this year. Even though Jupiter 3 has launched successfully, we continue working on all our work streams, Horizon One, Two, and Three in parallel. As for Horizon Three, it is our longer-term strategy to expand into new markets through organic innovation and potential acquisitions. To that end, earlier today, we filed an update to our S-4 registration statement with the SEC in relation to our pending merger with DISH. We expect the S-4 to go effective in the coming days and are on track to close the transaction this year. In addition, we continue evolving our S-band prospects. As we announced during the first quarter, construction of our EchoStar Lyra LEO constellation is on the way.
We continue to be on track to launch the first light of satellites in late 2024 or early 2025 to begin offering store-and-forward Internet of Things, machine-to-machine, and other data services. At the same time, we are developing opportunities for our global S-band assets. For example, we continue to bring on new customers in Europe for our EchoStar Mobile LoRa-enabled IoT service and are investing in the development of 3GPP Release 17 to complement the existing LoRa technology. Let me now turn it over to the operator to start the Q&A session.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Brent Penter (Equity Research Associate)
Good morning, everyone. This is Brent on for Rick. Thanks for the question. First one, on the DISH deal, what milestones are left for closing the deal? And, Hamid, with you set to become DISH CEO next week, as opposed to at the deal close, what should we read from that in terms of the merger timeline?
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Brent, Hamid here. I'll start the answer in the second part, and I defer to Dean, who's on the call for the first part regarding the milestones. Look, there's nothing more to read regarding my taking a dual role here. I mean, candidly, we are, we have very high confidence that the companies will merge, and there's, you know, really no obstacles that we are aware of that would stand in our way of getting the companies together. You know, time, you know, it, it's an opportunity to make sure that we get a good head start for 2024 ahead. You know, as I mentioned, you know, we, we just passed in EchoStar, we just passed our lowest point of the, you know, performance.
And, we hope that the similar, you know, kind of situation develops at DISH, so we can bring the companies together and look for a much more, you know, effective and energetic performance into 2024. So want to just get that head start. There's budgeting process going on, other things going on, that would allow me to, you know, be better in shape to run the business when the two companies are merged. Really, there's not much more to it, to read than, you know, this whole ability to at least, you know, get the runway, you know, started for, 2024. Dean, I'll pass it to you regarding the milestones left before the merger closes.
Dean Manson (Chief Legal Officer)
Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Hamid. Brent, yeah, it's pretty straightforward from this point onward. You know, we just need to mail the information statement to shareholders, wait the prescribed amount of time. There are a couple of small things that remain, that should be done well within that time period, you know, such as the pro forma FCC approval for transfer control of certain licenses. But as we said in our public statements, we fully expect this to be wrapped up by year-end.
Brent Penter (Equity Research Associate)
Okay. And then you announced an unusual move, flipping the structure for the merger, for EchoStar to be the surviving company now. Can you give us some more detail on the rationale for that?
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
[crosstalk]
Dean Manson (Chief Legal Officer)
Sure. No, I was just gonna add that this, you know, this really was the result of looking at what's the optimal way to structure the companies that are ultimately going to be merged and operated as one company. So it really wasn't, there wasn't any thought of it being one company acquiring the other, although as a strict legal matter, that's the way these things get structured.
You know, as we said, in the statements we made when we announced the modified structure, this gives us, you know, greater flexibility in terms of, you know, capital and, capital allocation and, and, you know, some of the, contractual and debt-related, restrictions that are in place at the different companies. Yeah, this creates incrementally more flexibility. So, it was just seen as, you know, somewhat better, somewhat more flexible structure, but really exactly the same, combined company in the end, in terms of how it'll be operated and managed.
Brent Penter (Equity Research Associate)
Okay. And then lastly, you talked about the in-flight connectivity deal with Delta. What drove the decision to enter IFC that's been a competitive market historically? And can you also update us on the progress of the Galileo project with Gogo?
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Yes. Let me say something about the in-flight business, and certainly, we'll ask Paul to, you know, embellish and add to that. Look, we have been, its use has been in the in-flight business, you know, since 2012. We just have not been taking the lead position, and, you know, we have provided solutions through other parties that have served that market. You know, we have been serving a numerous number of airlines globally, you know, around the world. So this was just an opportunity for us to step up and become a direct supplier, an integrated supplier, that can provide, you know, end-to-end, you know, all aspects of the service. So this is not a new area, as I said, this is not a new area for us. We understand the market very well.
We have been, through third parties, we have been supplier to Southwest Airlines, Air France, KLM, Turkish Airlines, and Spirit Airlines, other airlines. And, you know, here now, you know, the opportunities here, we, we look at the market, a market that is, you know, today, $1.3 billion, but is expected to be more than $4 billion in 2032. So this is one of the big growth opportunities in the enterprise business. We find ourselves in a very prime position, both from a capacity perspective because of Jupiter's re-arrival, and also because of all the great technologies that a Hughes team has developed, to equip the planes and provide excellent service. Paul, is there anything else you'd like to add, with respect to our decision to, to move to this area?
Paul Gaske (COO)
No, I think that's the main points. I think, underneath that decision, of course, is we have ideally situated assets with the Jupiter fleet, which allows us to provide a good service in the regions that we're discussing right now. And also because of our extensive activities in the LEO space with OneWeb and our antenna technology there, we think that there's some seriously good opportunities coming up in the near future.
Brent Penter (Equity Research Associate)
Okay. And related to that, could you give an update on where you are in the Gogo project, and the timeline there?
Paul Gaske (COO)
Well, I would just say it's going very well, and I'd have to leave it to Gogo to describe, you know, where they are in timing for their market. So I'll leave it at that, but it is going well.
Brent Penter (Equity Research Associate)
Okay. Thanks for the questions, guys.
Operator (participant)
Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from Michael Rollins with Citi. Your line is open.
Michael Rollins (Managing Director)
Thanks, and good morning. A couple questions, if I could. You know, first, the broadband market has evolved significantly since you first started talking about the J3 opportunity. Can you remind us how we should be thinking about how the push to commercial service later this year and into 2024 can influence subscriber and cash flow results, and how much of a possible boost to subscriber performance should be in the back of our minds? And then just separately, in the SEC filing today for EchoStar, there is a reference that EchoStar may operate DISH Network's business in a different manner from how DISH Network has operated it in the past. And just curious if you could unpack that a little bit and share some of your thoughts on how you may want to run it differently. Thank you.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
I will make some statements about EchoStar's performance next year. I probably cannot add much more than the S-4 has already put on the market. With respect to EchoStar, we expect we certainly expect growth next year, I mean, in a number of consumers that we have. But I am more excited about the significant opportunities that Enterprise brings us above that. We have a, you know, place in the consumer market that we think is well within the protection of our pricing and offering that is differentiated than, you know, where Starlink is operating, and we see the market actually be, you know, very ripe for the segment that we are addressing.
You know, while we are not considering ourselves primarily, you know, tied and dependent on our consumer business as it had been in, I would say, you know, many years past, more and more we see very large opportunities come our way in the enterprise. Again, I mentioned during the call that we expect our backlog, enterprise backlog to by end of this year, you know, approach $2 billion. That is, that is very significant. As you can see, this is a shift of our business mix towards enterprise. Now, enterprise has lower gross margin, but it has far lower CapEx requirements and has far lower churn, and the backlog is over the course of many years. And once you are in an enterprise business, you're generally expected to remain there.
You remain there for many years, very, very, you know, sustainable business and has a long, you know, horizon and long, long life. So we see our business shifting in that direction. We clearly see 2024 as a better year than 2023. And in fact, '23 this quarter was the lowest point that we had anticipated. And now from here on, in fact, you will see a, you know, improvement in our numbers, in all metrics in fourth quarter, even in advance of J3 showing up. In terms of revenue, you will see us, you know, improving, in every metric, you know, significantly, particularly in revenue, as has been historically also the performance of the business.
You know, as it comes to DISH, I mean, we obviously a combination of two companies will have a, you know, a number of opportunities here. For instance, the whole enterprise business, you know, that the 5G, you know, private 5G and enterprise 5G will become a, you know, significantly better opportunity when we combine our enterprise business here at Echo at EchoStar with, you know, the capabilities that that DISH has. So, those opportunities will, you know, become more tangible and more real. I can't say much more than what we have said on beyond, that's in the S4 today, just obvious reasons. But, I guess I'll stop right there, and if there's any more specific narrow questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them.
Michael Rollins (Managing Director)
Thanks. Maybe just one other follow-up. You know, you mentioned approaching $2 billion of backlog at the end of this year. I think the Q referenced, if this is the right comparable, $1 billion, $1.5 billion of contracted revenue in the backlog as of September 30th. So, to close that between the $1.5 billion and the $2 billion, if that's the right comparison, is that partly the Delta agreement that you disclosed, or are there new other incremental agreements or opportunities that we should be mindful of within that context?
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
So we're looking at a number of deals and opportunities. As I said, our enterprise business is facing a, you know, significant amount of demand from a variety of sources. Obviously, in-flight business is one, and there are multiple opportunities there that we're working on. And there's other segments that are not related to in-flight. I mean, we have deals from Far East and other places that are materializing, that are, you know, in our mind, are very significant. So, you know, that's. Please take that as a basket. Don't take it as, you know, any single deal. But we are quite confident that we are approaching $2 billion of backlog by end of the year. Again, what's really important is not necessarily every individual component in that.
What's relevant is that, you know, our business is very sustainable, and this backlog has vastly grown, and it could even grow significantly beyond this as we enter in the, you know, first couple of quarters of next year. We are working on opportunities that will manifest themselves in that time frame. We expect them to manifest. So it's a gradual shift of our business towards enterprise in a very long horizon of foreseeable revenues and cash flows.
Michael Rollins (Managing Director)
Thanks. It's helpful.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Your line is open.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Thanks, guys. Congratulations on the Delta RJ deal. That was a surprise, given your past business practice of staying indirect. And it sounds like you're going to make a bigger commercial aviation push, and that opens up the question, you know, your satellite assets are North American-based. Do you intend to, you know, build out a global service infrastructure? And obviously, that would involve partnering for global capacity, or is there a desire to build out that capacity? And then the secondary question to that commercial aviation market is, you know, which band? Again, you're Ka-band, but you're dealing with Ku on your LEO strategy, and there are no Ka LEOs that exist today. So that's a lot, but if you can sort of unpack what you're thinking.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Yeah, Chris, remember that, we are just, we are not purely a connectivity provider as it comes to our services, enterprise services. We provide significant amount of technical products, antennas, our electronically steered antennas, our software that goes into the, there are many, many satellite operations around the world that use our software and services. So, without disclosing too much information that could potentially harm us in a competitive way, I'd like to say that, you know, while we have direct connectivity of our own satellites in the Americas, we can work with others around the world to, you know, provide service and other products to them to make to have a bigger play in the in-flight business. So I'll just stop there. But we are definitely a global company.
Our footprints, whether, you know, connectivity may be one aspect of it, but our footprint of our, you know, products and services are global. That's how we think that in the in-flight business, we can have a play that is bigger than just the Americas.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Good. Speaking of the Americas, Jupiter 3, and correct me if I'm wrong, when you guys architected that thing back in, you know, 2014, 2015, I mean, that was five years before LEO broadband ever existed. And I think at the time, you know, the plumbing was sort of optimized for consumer. Does that create any issues for serving, you know, enterprise markets? Clearly, you've found a way to operate it in aviation, and I think you made mention of the fact that you did something special in terms of the design. So how flexible is Jupiter 3 if you find the need to pivot more towards some of these enterprise applications?
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Paul, perhaps you want to comment on that?
Paul Gaske (COO)
Yeah, certainly. So Jupiter 3, first off, while we had a mission of serving consumers, we also had a major portion of our plan anticipated aeronautical services, as well as other enterprise services, so it's not a new area. Additionally, the way we designed it was to get as much capacity as possible in key areas across the region, and so it does that very effectively. We have, if you look at the typical in-flight service, probably the biggest obstacle that operations has is serving the hub area cities, and that's where the Jupiter 3 capacity, in particular, comes in quite handy for serving them. And if you look at our architecture, we actually utilize all three Jupiter satellites, so we have a fabric of capability.
So depending on where we are and how much capacity we need, we'll draw on any one of the three. And so that's how we generally build the system, and at the same time, we do have capacity available from some other business partners to help us fill that out in the few areas that we are not covering. So we think we're in pretty good shape with that.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Speaking of all three, Jupiter 3, Spaceway is now past its design life. How's that holding up?
Paul Gaske (COO)
Well, it's within days of being completely decommissioned in the graveyard orbit. So yeah, it's been moving quietly across the arc here over the last month, so-
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Clearly not creating any capacity issues given the availability of Jupiter 3.
Paul Gaske (COO)
No, no. We drained off all of our subscribers early to make sure they had continuity of service. And so, you know, while the Spaceway served us really well, we wanted to make sure customers got the newer services and we moved them.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Gotcha. A quick reference, I think in the transcript you had mentioned, you were excited about some defense programs, and I missed it was one tied in with SES. Can you maybe give a little bit more color on that particular program? Was it press released? I don't recall seeing it.
Paul Gaske (COO)
Yes, there was a release for it. Yeah, that program is a very interesting one because the SES Defense Group has obviously they have their mPOWER services, which are MEOs, and they obviously have plenty of GEOs. And so we have a modem technology that's accepted by DoD that we've blended in with some requirements they had to provide this multi-orbit solution. I think they had previously announced this probably, I don't know, a month or two ago. I can probably give you a reference at some point. But yeah, it's announced and very interesting, very exciting. It's a sample of what is gonna be happening as we go forward in the defense space.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Great. And, final question here, and, you may have already mentioned it in the call, but, what is the current timing on both of the antennas, for delivery, both the OneWeb and Gogo? Any change in sort of the development and production there?
Paul Gaske (COO)
Yeah, I think, first off, I think I mentioned in the call here a little bit, this quarter we're shipping the OneWeb antennas. They're going really well. They'll leave the factory shortly. Those are the fixed antennas, and we'll be using those in a number of places as, as well as where OneWeb will apply them. And as far as the Gogo antennas go, we're gonna leave it to Gogo to respond, to the schedules on that. But they, but the program is going very well. The system looks, looks like it's performing better than we had thought, so we're very happy with that.
Chris Quilty (Co-CEO and President)
Very good. Thank you, gentlemen.
Operator (participant)
Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from David Barden with Bank of America. Your line is open.
David Barden (Managing Director and Senior Telecommunications Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the questions. I really appreciate it. I guess my questions are for you, Hamid. You know, given that you'll be the new CEO of DISH in a week, I'm gonna bring up the three things that people really wanna know what your perspective is on. Issue number one is, DISH is paying $100 million to extend the time of the option that they have to buy spectrum from T-Mobile in the 800 MHz band, and that's $3.6 billion. And really, no one can figure out how that is gonna happen from a funding perspective. So if you could have an input on that, that'd be great. The second, I think, question is from the S-4.
DISH just put up a quarter with less than $100 million of EBITDA, but is now projecting more than $2 billion of EBITDA for 2024. How do you plan to make that happen? And then the third question is, you know, DISH was ideally gonna be the fourth facilities-based mobile player in America. It, it's been struggling. How are you gonna fix it? That'd be great. Thank you.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Thank you. Naturally, I can't answer any of those questions today, even unofficially. I don't have detailed knowledge of any of that yet to the point that I can give you meaningful answers. Listen, I clearly understand that liquidity and cash is, you know, prime, prime, prime requirement to the business and a concern of the, you know, lenders and equity holders, and I certainly will focus on that. Certainly, I do intend to make sure, you know, we maximize our use of our capital and not getting the company into, you know, deeper need for cash before we can solve the problems and solve the challenges we have.
I think there's a number of avenues that we during the evaluation of the merger that the bankers had identified and that is at hand that you know I have had the privilege of seeing as a result of the merger documents that gives us some room. So this is not without solutions or without room. So certainly that is there, but I can't obviously provide any more detail today. Look, as it comes to you know being a competitive provider in the market, look, there is today there is no way to get into a mobile business anywhere in the world, particularly in a market as sophisticated, as large and as expensive as United States, before you spend you know billions and billions of dollars ahead of time before you can get your first customer.
There's no way. I mean, I have been part of mobile business for the past 35 years, at least, going back to the 1G and 2G and 3G, and, you know, having significant roles in every single one of those. And I can tell you that, you know, just the entry point to become a carrier, you got to have, you know, vast coverage, nationwide coverage, you know, a nation the size of U.S. You got to buy plenty of a spectrum to even be considered as viable. And, you know, you, you incur incredible amount of OpEx in terms of leases and backhaul circuits and energy and maintenance and license fees, and you name it. All of those come in before you can get the first customer.
You know, I remember when I was in the AMPS business, just a very young engineer, we had three or four sales in the neighborhood, and we considered ourselves, you know, completely in business. You know, we launched our 2G in the U.S. in 13 different markets. Each one of them, you know, was just a downtown area, and that was acceptable. For the consumers at that time, that was a luxury. Today, you need to spend, you know, $30 billion before you can start selling, you know, the first mobile phone on your own network. So I think it's not surprised, there is no surprise that, you know, any entrant, and, I, I'll venture to guess that in many markets, there will never be a new mobile entrant. There won't be.
I mean, Dish may be the last one that enters a big market as a new ground zero entrant. You, I would venture to guess you're not gonna see a new 6G entrant in any market. The time is passing for, you know, new mobile entrants to come in just because the cost and CapEx involved in the infrastructure to begin service is so high. Dish has managed to achieve that. It may be the last one that actually creates that business, and that's my intent to go give it my absolute best shot for us to make that work. Now, we have a number of.
You know, DISH has a number of, you know, attributes that have not yet been, you know, made available in a consumable way, and that is the 5G infrastructure, which, you know, in a consumer world, is not as relevant as it comes to more of an enterprise and, you know, verticals and, you know, special type of operations. That is an opportunity ahead of us that we need to focus on and make a differentiation in addition to, you know, all of the things that EchoStar brings in, which is global and has relevance when we tie them all together. Hopefully, we'll disclose all of that strategy, and I will, you know, be here speaking to you about how that will work, as I put the pieces together.
But I'm optimistic that, you know, the road ahead is much more, you know, much brighter than it might look, having reached this point that, you know, all that cost has been in there, all of the expenses in there, but the revenues and other things are yet to come, than just by design of a new entrant into a market. Hopefully, that gives you a bit of a perspective from a mindset perspective, but I can't give you any specific on your three areas. Just rest assured that they're registered in my mind, and I'm not forgetting about any of that.
David Barden (Managing Director and Senior Telecommunications Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you so much, Hamid, for your perspective. I really appreciate it, and good luck, and thank you so much for the time.
Hamid Akhavan (CEO and President)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
I show no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Dean Manson for closing remarks.
Dean Manson (Chief Legal Officer)
Thank you, Michelle. We're now ready to conclude the meeting, and I thank everyone for calling in.