Dish steps up campaign to derail SoftBank's bid for Sprint Nextel In 2006 a bid by Dubai Ports World to buy several US port terminals fell apart at the last minute after opponents of the proposed deal launched a fierce lobbying effort in Washington, stoking fears that Middle Eastern owners might jeopardise national security. Now Dish is hoping it can steal a page from that playbook. The Colorado-based satellite television provider has launched a brash campaign in Washington aimed at derailing Japan-based SoftBank's bid for Sprint Nextel, the US wireless provider that Dish is also trying to buy. Dish has filed letters to the Federal Communications Commission disparaging SoftBank, created a website dedicated to scuttling the deal, and on Tuesday it launched an advertising campaign with a message for policy makers: "Don't outsource our national security." It has even gone so far as to compare the SoftBank deal for Sprint to the Dubai Ports controversy. On the website it created and with ads in the Washington Post and Politico, it contrasts images of Dubai Ports equipment with a photograph of an internet router. The copy reads: "In an ever changing world, "ports" may change, but keeping them in American hands never should." The overt lobbying follows comments by Dish chairman Charlie Ergen that suggested Japanese control of Sprint would lead to a flood of ineffectual foreign workers. "We are an American company, and the modernisation of Sprint's network will have to be done from the US," he told USA Today. You have to climb the towers here, and you'll have to have US employees who speak English. Mr Ergen's father was an Austrian immigrant who came to the US before the second world war and worked on the Manhattan Project. SoftBank called the Dish campaign "undignified xenophobic rhetoric lacking appreciation for the critical strategic and trade relationship between the US and Japan." SoftBank also pointed out that the company's $20.1bn deal for Sprint would be the largest foreign investment in the US since 2008. James Thurber, a professor at American university in Washington who studies lobbying, said the Dish effort was "a stretch." "In an effective lobbying campaign you can't just run a few ads," he said. These things are rarely effective unless it's China, and I don't think they can make a national security case. Dish is pursuing the China angle. It says the company's commercial ties with Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei could prove a risk, given Sprint's customers include several US military agencies. It also points to SoftBank's stake in Alibaba, the Chinese internet group, as cause for concern. "Cyber security is a focus of congress today, and China has been one of the leading sources of recent attacks," said Jeff Blum, deputy general counsel of Dish. If you had a choice, would you prefer all of these sensitive government contracts to be in the hands of a company here in the US, or one with connections to China? However, Sprint and SoftBank have both agreed not to use equipment made by Huawei. They had also agreed to replace products made by the Chinese company in the network of Clearwire, a data network operator that Sprint is acquiring. Dish is working with Goodfriend Government Affairs, run by former Clinton administration official turned lobbyist David Goodfriend, and the law firms Steptoe & Johnson and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Opponents of the Dubai Ports deal were able to enlist high profile politicians including Senator Charles Schumer in their fight. But so far, the lobbying campaign has not yet caught on in a Washington mired in partisan bickering. The most vocal critics of SoftBank's deal so far have been former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Republican senator Orrin Hatch, and former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. During a House hearing on cybersecurity on Tuesday, Mr McConnell said he opposed foreign ownership of Sprint. "If you are in the intelligence business ... the one thing you would love to do is run the telecommunications infrastructure in another country," he said.