Dish Network’s shares have dropped after the news broke that it had decided to repurchase $500 million in convertible debt from AT&T.

Dish Network, which was known as EchoStar until a name change earlier this year, said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it would have to buy the 3 percent convertible notes that were due in 2010.

Dish’s shares were down 7.4 percent, to $30.59 per share, yesterday afternoon and were trading at $30.56 around noon today.

The Associated Press reported that AT&T is less likely to buy Dish because of the debt repurchase, but it could open the door for DirecTV to be distributed by AT&T in reseller agreements where AT&T doesn’t have its U-verse service deployed.

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