The FCC’s “fourth facilities-based carrier” plan is effectively over. A federal judge approved the DOJ request to release EchoStar from its commitment to build and operate a nationwide mobile network inherited from Dish. After selling major spectrum blocks to AT&T and SpaceX, Boost Mobile is now positioned as a hybrid MVNO—running its own cloud-native core while primarily using AT&T’s towers, with T-Mobile coverage as fallback.