Boost SubscriberCo L.L.C., doing business as Boost Mobile, is an American telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation which operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in the United States. Together with its sister brands Gen Mobile, it serves 7.51 million subscribers as of December 31, 2025.
Boost Mobile was founded as a joint venture between Avalon Adderton, Peter Adderton, Craig Cooper, Kirt McMaster, and Nextel Communications in 2001. It was purchased by Nextel in 2003 and, as a result of the merger between Sprint Corporation and Nextel, then became owned by Sprint in 2005. It was then acquired by Dish Network on July 1, 2020, following the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. After Dish's merger with EchoStar on December 31, 2023, Boost Mobile became a subsidiary of EchoStar.
The company formerly operated a 5G network covering over 80% of the American population. However, it is no longer a facilities-based mobile network operator, having shut down its network on November 15, 2025 and instead became an MVNO hosted on AT&T's wireless network.
History
Joint venture and Nextel ownership After Peter Adderton founded Boost Mobile Australia and New Zealand in 2000, Peter Adderton, Craig Cooper, and Kirt McMaster brought the Boost Mobile brand to the United States in 2001 as a joint venture with Nextel Communications. Using Nextel's iDEN network, Boost Mobile offered an unlimited push-to-talk service, marketed as only costing a dollar a day, at a time when cellphone plans offering unlimited talk were still rare. The service was initially exclusive to markets in areas of California and Nevada and was marketed towards urban minorities, often using urban slang in advertisements. Eventually, Nextel became the sole owner of Boost's United States operations in 2003. Nextel began to expand the brand elsewhere in the United States in late 2004 after its acquisition by Sprint Corporation. Boost Mobile then became a subsidiary of the merged company, Sprint Nextel Corporation.
Sprint ownership Boost Mobile still continued to use the previous Nextel iDEN infrastructure for its service, but in 2006, began to offer a new Unlimited by Boost Mobile service in select markets using Sprint's CDMA network, offering unlimited talk, text, and internet. While the plans resulted in significant growth for Boost Mobile, Boost did not begin shifting to CDMA entirely.
To compete with unlimited offerings from competitors in the wireless industry, Boost Mobile announced on January 15, 2009, that it would launch a Monthly Unlimited Plan. The plan was accompanied by re-focusing the brand towards a broader demographic than before. The new unlimited plan resulted in a net gain of more than 674,000 customers in about three months. Despite this lift, Nextel overall suffered a gross subscriber loss of 1.25 million contract subscriptions. The unexpected surge in popularity for the service caused significant strain on the Nextel iDEN networkas many customers reported long and sometimes week-long delays in receiving text messages. A Boost Mobile spokesman said that they did not anticipate the level of popularity for the new service and that efforts to improve the network had been implemented to help mitigate the problem.
At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, Boost Mobile announced it would begin to offer a new unlimited plan using Sprint's CDMA network. Sprint also acquired fellow prepaid wireless provider Virgin Mobile USA in 2010both Boost and Virgin Mobile were re-organized into a new group within Sprint, encompassing the two brands and other no-contract phone services offered by the company.
In 2019, as part of the merger of Sprint Corporation and T-Mobile US, Sprint agreed to divest its prepaid wireless businesses, including Boost Mobile, in order to reduce antitrust concerns. In January 2020, Sprint discontinued the Virgin Mobile USA brand and transferred its customers to Boost Mobile.
Dish Network ownership
On April 1, 2020, Sprint merged with T-Mobile; the surviving company, T-Mobile, in accordance of the terms of the merger, entered into a $1.4 billion deal to sell Boost Mobile to Dish Network. The sale was completed on July 1. All new Boost Mobile customers used the T-Mobile network, with the remaining Sprint customers to be moved to the T-Mobile network over time. As part of the deal, Dish committed to building out a 5G network serving at least 70% of the U.S. population by June 2023 and was granted access to the T-Mobile network for seven years.
To grow its wireless subscriber base, Dish acquired Ting Mobile on August 1, 2020, Republic Wireless on March 8, 2021, and Gen Mobile on September 1, 2021. On July 19, 2021, Dish Network announced it was purchasing $5 billion of wholesale wireless over the next 10 years from AT&T. In exchange, Dish shares some of its 5G spectrum with AT&T.
In December 2022, Dish launched a postpaid service under the spin-off brand Boost Infinite.
2023 ransomware attack In February 2023, Boost Mobile's parent company Dish Network suffered a major ransomware attack which resulted in internal outages, loss of service and data theft at its subsidiary companies. Boost Mobile customers reported that they were unable to contact customer service, cancel their subscription, or make payments. The outage affected customers across the U.S.
Service outages lasted for more than a month, with customers reporting wait times for customer service stretching to more than 14 hours. Full service was not restored until May 2023.
EchoStar ownership On August 8, 2023, Dish Network Corporation and EchoStar Corporation announced their intention to merge. The two companies claimed that it would grant them additional resources and flexibility in deploying connectivity services. On December 31, 2023, EchoStar completed its acquisition of Dish Network, including its wireless division.
EchoStar President and CEO Hamid Akhavan promised, in May 2024, that there would be a reboot of the Boost brand in the second half of 2024. On July 17, 2024, EchoStar merged its prepaid Boost Mobile and postpaid Boost Infinite into a rebranded Boost Mobile; the company introduced new 5G unlimited plan offerings that would start at $25 per-month, and include both a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a promotion offering a price lock guarantee for postpaid subscribers.
On June 6, 2025, it was reported that EchoStar Corporation was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suspended EchoStar's ability to plan out strategic decisions for Boost Mobile.
On June 29, 2026, EchoStar announced that Dish DBS, which operates Dish Network's satellite pay-TV business, would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by June 30. EchoStar blamed the decision on heavy debt and subscriber losses, as well as legal troubles with federal regulators on whether it has met obligations to deploy wireless spectrum licenses. On June 30, Dish DBS filed for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas, listing assets and liabilities between $10 billion and $50 billion. The filing allows for Dish to pay its debt obligations and complete the transition of Dish Wireless to Boost Mobile following spectrum transactions. Dish plans to emerge from bankruptcy by the third quarter of 2026 with plans to wind down operations at Dish Wireless. Boost Mobile is not apart of the filing and will continue operations normally.
Echostar closed the sale of a large portion of its spectrum to AT&T on July 28th, 2026.
Network Dish Network began building a nationwide 5G wireless network as part of the company's strategy to expand its services beyond satellite television. After acquiring Boost Mobile, Dish began building out a standalone 5G network, that does not rely on any LTE infrastructure.
In May 2022, Dish began to launch its 5G network, offering service under the "Project Genesis" brand in Las Vegas. The company stated that it planned to serve at least 120 cities by the June 2023 deadline. In June 2022, Dish announced it had met the FCC mandate to provide coverage to 20% of the U.S. population. In June 2023, the company announced that it had met the requirement to provide coverage to 70% of the U.S. population by June 14, 2023.
As part of EchoStar's rebranding of Boost Mobile, it began referring to its 5G wireless network as the "Boost Mobile Network" and discontinued its usage of the Dish Wireless brand.
On September 18, 2024, EchoStar requested an extension for the final construction deadlines associated with several of its AWS-4, AWS-3, H Block, 700 MHz, and 600 MHz spectrum licenses until December 31, 2026, with further provisions for extension until June 14, 2028, if certain commitments are met. EchoStar committed to expand its nationwide 5G coverage to 80% of the U.S. population by December 31, 2024, and accelerate and expand its final buildout milestones in more than 500 license areas. The company promised to offer a nationwide low-cost 5G plan offering 30 GB for $25 per month and a low-cost 5G device costing $125, and it offered to increase the number of 5G towers to 24,000 by mid-2025 and allow small carriers and tribal nations to lease its unused spectrum. EchoStar announced that the FCC granted the 5G buildout framework for the Boost Mobile Network on September 20, 2024.
On August 26, 2025, Echostar announced that it had struck a deal with AT&T to sell all of the company's 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses. The companies also amended their network services agreement to turn Boost Mobile into a hybrid mobile network operator (MNO), making AT&T the main network for Boost customers to resolve the FCC's inquiries into the Echostar's spectrum utilization. Echostar assurred customers that they will also continue to have access to the T-Mobile network. As a result of this transaction, elements of Boost Mobile's radio access network (RAN) will be decommissioned over time. Network shutdown On November 15, 2025, EchoStar shut down its wireless network and became an MVNO hosted on AT&T's mobile network.
Radio frequency spectrum chart
The following is a list of known frequencies that Boost Mobile employed or planned to employ in the United States prior to shutting down its network in November 2025.
+Frequencies on the Boost Mobile NetworkFrequency BandBand numberProtocolGenerationStatusNotes600 MHz DDn71 NR 5GDecommissioned/SoldNetwork launched in trial in November 2020. Licenses cover 100% of the continental United States. Sold to AT&T.700 MHz Lower SMH Block En29Supplemental downlink only.1.7/2.1 GHz AWSn66 Combination of EchoStar's unpaired AWS-3, PCS-H, and AWS-4 holdings. To be sold to SpaceX.n703.4 GHz C-bandn77 SoldLicenses cover 100% of the continental United States. Spectrum acquired in 2021 auction. Sold to AT&T.3.5 GHz CBRSn48CancelledLicenses cover 100% of the continental United States. 3.7 GHz C-bandn77Spectrum will be available for use starting December 2023.24 GHz K-Bandn258Spectrum acquired in 2019 auction28 GHz Ka-Bandn26139 GHz Ka-Bandn260 Spectrum acquired in 2020 auction.47 GHz V-Bandn262Licenses cover 100% of the continental United States.
Released phones In June 2010, Boost Mobile launched the Motorola i1 smartphone, Boost's first iDEN-based push-to-talk Android phone, and in April 2011, they announced the Samsung Galaxy Prevail, the company's first CDMA-based Android offering.
In July 2012, Boost Mobile released the BlackBerry Curve 9310, and in March 2013, they released the HTC One SV and the ZTE-made Boost Force smartphone, the company's first device using Sprint's 4G LTE network. In June that year, Boost Mobile released the LG Optimus F7, the company's first device with a removable Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) for LTE network authentication/access, a new form of Subscriber identity module (SIM card).