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The Dish on Small Business

Charles W. Ergen is the richest man in Colorado, and the business he controls has earned a 25 percent discount on licenses — $3.25 billion in discounts. You may be familiar with his very small business: the satellite TV provider Dish Network. By taking advantage of several loopholes involving a subsidiary company on Native American land in Alaska, the company has managed to gain the FCC’s designation as a “very small business.” Roger C. Sherman, chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless telecommunications bureau, said the agency would “thoroughly review and scrutinize each application” to make sure it “has complied with the commission’s bidding credit rules.” Doyon, Dish’s subsidiary company, had defended their actions. “We followed the designated entity (D.E.) program rules and did what Congress intended: create competition,” said president and CEO Aaron M. Schutt. “By any measure, the D.E. program delivers solid value for the American taxpayer.” (MS/New York Times) ...I’d get more value from not losing billions to a multi-billion dollar corporation.