March 28 2023 Dish
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DISH Network (NASDAQ: DISH) is counting down to launch its 5G facilities-based Open RAN (O-RAN) network. Under FCC rules, the company must activate its nationwide network to cover 20 percent of the U.S. population by June 2022. Then it must ramp up that coverage to 70 percent of POPs by June 2023. Show DISH currently has over 50 markets under construction and is targeting a total of 137 markets to be ready by the June 2022 deadline. The top 27 metro markets include large metropolitan areas such as Dallas and Houston in Texas and Las Vegas, NV along with smaller cities like Nashville, TN and Rochester, NY. These top markets have an aggregate of 41 million or around 12 percent of the U.S. population. Rolling out service in the other 110 markets around the country should get DISH to the 20 percent bogey. These markets include Tier 2/3 cities such as Ann Arbor, MI, Huntsville, AL, Des Moines, IA and Rochester, MN. Throughout the fourth quarter of 2021, the company has been conducting a beta trial of its flagship Las Vegas network with volunteers, drive testing and user equipment testing. DISH says the network is operational now as a 5G stand-alone network, operating with O-RAN principles and is cloud native in the AWS cloud. DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen claims that the company is building the most advanced network in the world. “We probably ended up doing a lot more development than we thought in some of the technologies with our vendors. But that is up and operational and when it works, it works pretty well,” he says. “As always, we still have work to do … to develop through all the cities and to optimize the network. But the technical challenges have been resolved for some of the core things that we needed to do.” One obstacle that still must be cleared is integrating E911 service into DISH’s network call processing capabilities, as Inside Towers reported. The company significantly increased its network capital expenditures reaching $1 billion in 2021. DISH is guiding its 2022 network capex to $2.5 billion as it steps up its market-by-market deployments to meet the June 2022 deadline, then to keep rolling toward the June 2023 deadline and beyond. DISH originally budgeted $10 billion in network capex to take it through 2025 when it must cover 75 percent of the U.S. POPs. The company says it is on a cadence of “so many towers per month” for the next three years to meet that target. Factoring inflation along with adding small cells where needed, Ergen expects the company will spend the full $10 billion to achieve nationwide deployment. He defends the $10 billion estimate which many analysts thought was too low. “Our network build is very simple compared to our competitors. Because it’s a greenfield, we’re able to go in, and we’re able to RFP, for example, the tower leases. So we’ve got real competition on tower leases because obviously, the numbers were going to be great for us,” he says. “Second, it’s one set of antennas. It’s one low-band radio, one high band radio. And then most of our cost is in the cloud. It’s not at the base of the tower, where we really just have a server and some batteries.” Ergen also acknowledges, “We found that we had to become the system integrator. It wasn’t a role that we thought we’re going to take on. But with all the vendors, somebody has got to be the middleman between there and the glue that holds them together, and we’re much more involved in that than maybe we thought we were going to be. So, a lot of lessons learned there, but we’re certainly moving at a very fast pace.” By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
Is DISH building a 5G network?Dish Wireless is gearing up for a busy 2022 as the new 5G network is nearly ready to launch in Las Vegas and the company plans to turn up service in 25 major markets and 100 smaller cities ahead of its June buildout deadline.
What carrier does dish wireless use?After acquiring Boost from T-Mobile two years ago, Dish struck network sharing agreements with the carrier and AT&T, helping it offer mobile service across the US. Ergen said in May that the cloud-based wireless network will attract as many as 40 million subscribers and lift Dish's annual revenue above $30 billion.
Is dish a wireless carrier?4 US wireless carrier.
Is dish a carrier?Dish Wireless is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 8.2 million subscribers as of the end of Q1 2022. Dish Wireless provides wireless voice and data services in the United States under the Boost Mobile brand and will provide services under its own brand after its network is built.
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