Sounds like a lot of DISH's debt.
IF Echostar is still owning and running the satellites that used to part of DISH's service, then they are also the ones that uplink the channels for the DISH service and the local channels too.
If Echostar is also providing the receivers and I bet the lnbs, switches, sat dishes too. It sounds like the only thing that changed was the owner of the service on paper and who is running it at the ownership level TPG.
I take it that TPG is having to pay a monthly fee for Echostar service to provide the satellites, manage the channels video /audio quality and all the local channels too.
The more I think of it the less it sounds like a merger, since everything that makes it a service is still being provided by Echostar. Maybe this deal that Charlie and the guy who was in control at DIRECTV and ATT was to spin off all the debt they could to ATT and the deal with TPG was to keep DISH 's debt payment on time for November and to get DISH and ATT out of the day to day running of the satellite business. But it doesn't really sound like Echostar is out of the business at all. Without them there would be no business.
Maybe Scott is right and Charlie will come back in a year or two and reclaim the entire business from TPG once Boost is up and running well. After all it sounds like everything that makes the DISH side run, is still being owned and run by Echostar the original company that created DISH. Shouldn't be that hard for Charlie to swoop right back in and claim it all when he is ready. A merger he wanted in 2002 would finally be his.