The Dish tower lease lawsuits are a wave of more than a dozen breach-of-contract cases filed since October 2025 by cell tower owners, fiber providers, and contractors after Dish Wireless stopped paying rent on thousands of tower sites and claimed a force majeure event excused it from its obligations. The plaintiffs, led by American Tower, Crown Castle, and SBA Communications, are collectively seeking billions of dollars in unpaid and future lease payments. Dish, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation, says its parent’s sale of wireless spectrum makes further performance impossible. No court has yet ruled on that defense.
Why Dish Stopped Paying
Dish had signed long-term leases with the major tower companies to build the 5G network it committed to under FCC buildout milestones. The Strategic Collocation Agreement with American Tower, for example, was signed in March 2021 and gave Dish access to space on thousands of towers.
In August and September 2025, EchoStar announced it would sell the bulk of its wireless spectrum: roughly $23 billion worth to AT&T and about $17 billion to SpaceX, with a later $2.6 billion tranche also going to SpaceX. The combined sales totaled about $42.6 billion. EchoStar said Boost Mobile would move to a hybrid mobile virtual network operator model running on AT&T’s network rather than Dish’s own.
On September 24, 2025, Dish sent notices to its tower and infrastructure partners claiming the FCC’s earlier inquiry into EchoStar’s spectrum licenses was a force majeure event that excused its contractual obligations. Dish argued the spectrum sales were involuntary, driven by FCC pressure, and that paying for tower space it could no longer use would be commercially impossible.
The tower companies rejected that framing. They noted the FCC concluded its inquiry on September 8, 2025, without finding wrongdoing, mandating any action, or restricting Dish’s spectrum use. In their view, the sales were a voluntary decision that generated more than $40 billion, not a catastrophe outside anyone’s control. American Tower rejected Dish’s notice two days after it arrived and demanded continued performance. By October, Dish had begun decommissioning sites and had stopped paying across its tower portfolio.
Who Is Suing Dish
American Tower
American Tower filed the first major suit on October 20, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (Case No. 1:25-cv-03311), joined by its SpectraSite Communications and InSite Wireless Group subsidiaries. It seeks a declaratory judgment that the Strategic Collocation Agreement remains in full force and that Dish cannot invoke frustration of purpose to walk away. The amount at stake is roughly $210 million per year, about 4% of American Tower’s U.S. and Canada property revenue.
On December 12, 2025, American Tower moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that Dish’s defense fails as a matter of law because the spectrum sale was voluntary and foreseeable. The motion pointed to Dish’s own SEC filings going back to 2019, which acknowledged the risk of missing FCC buildout milestones. American Tower also argued that Dish intends to maintain operations at some tower sites, undercutting any claim that the contract’s purpose has been completely destroyed.
Crown Castle
Crown Castle sued on November 20, 2025, also in the District of Colorado (Case No. 1:25-cv-03756). It later declared Dish in formal default and, on January 12, 2026, announced it had terminated its wireless infrastructure agreement with Dish. Crown Castle is seeking to recover more than $3.5 billion in remaining payments under the terminated contract, which had covered space on roughly 20,000 towers.
SBA Communications
SBA Communications and 24 affiliated entities filed on February 5, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York (Case No. 1:26-cv-00218). SBA alleges Dish stopped paying as of December 1, 2025, and that it exercised its default remedies on January 27, 2026, after notices of default went uncured. SBA has estimated Dish-related churn will cost about $56 million of its 2026 site leasing revenue.
Fiber, Contractors, and Property Owners
The litigation extends well beyond the three largest tower owners:
- Zayo Group filed on November 26, 2025, in Denver District Court (Case No. 2025CV34300), seeking a declaratory judgment that its fiber and transport services contract remains enforceable.
- Diamond Towers and ten affiliated entities filed on January 19, 2026, in Denver District Court (Case No. 2026CV30222); the case was consolidated with Zayo’s on February 11, 2026.
- Harmoni Towers filed on February 2, 2026, in Denver District Court (Case No. 2026CV30349).
- Comcast Business filed on March 2, 2026, in the District of Colorado, seeking more than $54 million under a master service agreement.
- DataVerge filed in New York state court, later removed to the Eastern District of New York (Case No. 1:26-cv-01168).
- Sabre Industries filed in the Southern District of New York (Case No. 1:26-cv-00209).
- Individual site owners have also sued, including BDR Sonata East LLC (W.D. Wash.), Royal Group Plaza LLC and Seidner Properties LP (C.D. Cal.), and the Township of Marlboro (removed to D.N.J.).
The Wireless Infrastructure Association has estimated total industry exposure at roughly $9 billion if Dish succeeds in walking away from its master lease agreements.
Dish’s Defense and the Bankruptcy Threat
Dish’s argument is consistent across the cases. EchoStar’s spectrum sale was forced by FCC pressure, the argument goes; Dish Wireless itself did not own the spectrum and will not see any of the $42.6 billion in proceeds; and without spectrum it cannot run a wireless network or pay for tower space. In a March 2026 filing in the Crown Castle case, Dish called its performance “commercially impractical, indeed impossible.”
Corporate structure is central to the strategy. Dish Wireless L.L.C. is a subsidiary of EchoStar, and Dish maintains that the subsidiary’s obligations are separate from the parent’s. On EchoStar’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Chairman Charlie Ergen said, “We don’t believe we owe any money.”
MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a November 2025 research note that EchoStar had “not-so-subtly threatened to bankrupt its own subsidiary, Dish Wireless LLC, in order to shelter the parent company’s cash from the liabilities incurred in EchoStar’s erstwhile effort to build a wireless network.”
On March 3, 2026, Dish asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate eight federal cases into a single MDL proceeding in Colorado and to stay all proceedings in the meantime. As of June 2026, the JPML had denied centralization, so the cases continue in their respective courts.
The FCC Escrow Condition
The tower industry has also pushed the FCC to use its spectrum-transfer approval authority as leverage. In January 2026, the Wireless Infrastructure Association proposed that the FCC require EchoStar to establish an escrow to cover outstanding obligations. NATE, the Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, backed the idea on January 6, 2026, urging the FCC to block “the use of corporate shell games that shift risk and losses onto those builders and infrastructure partners.” Nearly 40 tower owners raised similar concerns with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
EchoStar argued that once spectrum assignments are approved, payment disputes fall outside FCC jurisdiction.
On May 12, 2026, the FCC approved EchoStar’s spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX but required EchoStar to establish a $2.4 billion escrow account to encourage the resolution of outstanding claims from tower companies and infrastructure partners. The FCC said the escrow would “encourage the resolution of outstanding claims while leaving the merits of any dispute to the parties or outside fora.” EchoStar, in a May 8, 2026, filing, called the escrow requirement “illegal, unprecedented, and unmanageable” and warned it could jeopardize the transactions.
EchoStar’s Financial Condition
The size of any recovery depends heavily on EchoStar’s ability to pay. For the year ended December 31, 2025, EchoStar reported a net loss of $14.5 billion, driven largely by $17.6 billion in non-cash asset impairments. Revenue fell to $15 billion from $15.8 billion in 2024, and cash reserves dropped from $4.3 billion to $1.88 billion. Operating cash flow turned negative.
S&P Global rated EchoStar at CCC+ with a negative outlook, estimated adjusted debt at roughly $35.8 billion, and flagged a “massive maturity wall” of nearly $10 billion coming due in 2026. Dish’s 5G network segment alone was generating annual losses of $500 million to $1 billion. S&P described the company’s long-term prospects as “highly uncertain.” In March 2026, EchoStar entered a Restructuring Support Agreement with holders of more than 82% of DISH DBS Corporation notes, and the agreement contemplated the possibility of a voluntary Chapter 11 filing.
Where Things Stand
As of mid-2026, no court has ruled on the merits of Dish’s force majeure defense. The JPML has declined to consolidate the federal cases, so American Tower, Crown Castle, SBA, and the other plaintiffs are litigating in parallel. The FCC’s $2.4 billion escrow condition is in place but contested by EchoStar. The WIA has warned the FCC that allowing EchoStar to keep the spectrum proceeds while abandoning lease obligations could “erode the integrity of the FCC’s spectrum assignment process” and disrupt future 5G and 6G deployment. The litigation is expected to continue well beyond this year.