Dish's partners surrender some spectrum licenses - WSJ

Oct 1 (Reuters) - Companies associated with Dish Network Corp have surrendered some spectrum licenses to the U.S. government after they were declared ineligible for $3.3 billion in small-business discounts earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The companies will hold on to about $9.8 billion of the $13.3 billion in licenses they won in an auction by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in January, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/1KUopvV)

Dish's affiliates would also have to pay a penalty on the licenses that they won't acquire, the report said.

Dish and partners had invested in separate companies with little to no revenue that can receive a 25 percent discount in auction bidding as "very small businesses."

The FCC in August voted to declare Northstar Wireless LLC and SNR Wireless LicenseCo LLC ineligible for the small-business discounts for their bidding.

SNR and Northstar were expected to have to repay more than $3 billion back to the FCC in order to keep the spectrum licenses.

Dish and the FCC were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Ramkumar Iyer in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)