Dish Network co-founder and president Charlie Ergen underscored the company’s commitment to building a 5G wireless network in today’s fourth quarter 2020 conference call. He reaffirmed his intention to bring 5G online in its first major cities to the end of the third quarter of 2021 – which runs from July to September – and was optimistic about Dish’s ability to boost the somewhat bleak global position of the US in terms of wireless network offerings.
Ergen spent several minutes on today’s call recapping what the company has done so far in its network building effort. With the acquisition of Boost Mobile last year, it currently offers prepaid service as an MVNO on the T-Mobile network, but has also been accumulating its own spectrum to make the switch to a full operator. This is a good sign for wireless competition in the United States; with Sprint no longer available as an option, Dish is positioned to become the fourth main carrier option. And it has to be to satisfy the conditions of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.
To that end, Dish made low, medium and high band spectrum purchases last year, and is estimated to have spent $ 2 billion on the recent C band auction. With access to these different spectrum types, Dish has the pieces of the so-called “layer cake” 5G that will help you establish a fast service with wide coverage.
“This is not our first rodeo,” said Ergen, emphasizing his confidence in the company’s ability to execute, despite the considerable risks. He didn’t stop there; Ergen believes Dish can “help the United States really start to lead wireless again.”
Maybe he is right. There is a big challenge ahead of Dish, but the company does not face one of the challenges currently plaguing major operators: maintaining the flow of 4G data while adding 5G. This led Verizon and AT&T, in particular, to turn to a technology called Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, or DSS, with poor results. Unfortunately, the barrier is too low at the moment for US networks, which can help Dish get started.