Dish Is Having Difficulty Rolling Out Its 5G Network: What You Need to Know – CNET

Dish Network, the satellite TV giant and fledgling mobile carrier, appears to have missed the deadline to offer 5G wireless service to at least 20% of the US population. Back in 2020, Dish entered the mobile market by acquiring some of Sprint’s mobile licenses, which Sprint was shedding as part of its merger with T-Mobile. The complex transaction suddenly made Dish the country’s fourth-biggest carrier and led to the creation of Dish Wireless service.

But the Federal Communications Commission had a stipulation. To ensure competition, the regulatory agency required Dish to make sure 20% of the US would get covered by its 5G network by June 14, 2022, a target the carrier appears to have missed. While Dish has been building out its network, the carrier has only confirmed 5G service in one US city, which went live last month.

Unless Dish has quietly activated service in dozens more cities since then, it seems the carrier hasn’t met its FCC-mandated target. A host of issues conspired to trip Dish up on the goal. The company acknowledged during an earnings call earlier this year that it had underestimated how much work it would take to get its own 5G network up and running.

Supply chain issues only made things worse. It’s unclear whether Dish will suffer any consequences for missing the deadline, which the FCC has previously extended. Neither Dish nor the FCC responded to a request for comment.

Here’s what you need to know about the deadline and Dish’s 5G plans. Why did the FCC put this requirement on Dish? The deadline is the result of a huge shift in the US mobile industry two years ago, when T-Mobile and Sprint combined in a $26. 5 billion deal.

The FCC nearly quashed the deal out of concerns that would lead to market concentration by taking one carrier out of the market. Just AT&T, Verizon and the new T-Mobile would remain. But Dish, which tried to add mobile service to its satellite TV offerings a decade ago, saw the carrier consolidation as an opportunity to become bigger in mobile.

The company paid $5 billion for Boost, Sprint’s prepaid mobile brand, as well as Sprint’s 800MHz wireless spectrum specifically for 5G. It also secured rights to use part of T-Mobile’s 5G network. Dish still needed to build out its own 5G network, a task that it started mostly from scratch.

To ensure Dish customers would have solid service, the FCC originally set March 7, 2020 as the deadline for the company to have its 5G network up and running. It also stipulated that coverage should reach 20% of the US population. The deadline, however, was pushed back by Dish’s request several times.

The latest date was set for June 14, 2022. Dish Chairman and co-founder Charlie Ergen declined to request another extension, according to Fierce Wireless , and was confident the carrier would meet the FCC deadline. Did Dish make the deadline? It does not seem like Dish has met its goal of covering 20% of the US by June 14.

According to the FCC’s terms, failing to meet the deadline could result in Dish’s license for wireless spectrums being revoked and paying fines of up to $2. 2 billion, according to Light Reading . Dish declined to comment before the deadline passed.

How far along is Dish’s 5G network? In early May, Dish made its 5G service publicly available in Las Vegas. Customers sign up for the service through “Project Genesis,” an early access program that costs $30 per month and currently is only available on Motorola Edge Plus handsets. (The service will accommodate other phones in the future.

) Dish had said its 5G service would be live in 26 cities by the June deadline. After the service launched in Las Vegas, the carrier published a list of 113 cities it planned to include in Project Genesis. Dish remained confident it would activate 5G service in enough cities to reach 20% of the US population as recently as its first quarter 2022 earnings call in May.

The carrier, however, hasn’t made public where the service has gone live other than Las Vegas. In addition to Sprint’s 800MHz range, Dish has also bid on several separate auctions to secure 5G spectrum licenses. These include spending $7.

3 billion in January on midband 5G in the 3. 45GHz spectrum and $913 million on the so-called C-band 5G in 2020. Combined, the chunks of connected 5G spectrum will be the backbone of its service.

While Dish can use some of T-Mobile’s 5G spectrum for years to come as part of agreements between the carriers, Dish also paid AT&T at least $5 billion in July 2021 for a 10-year contract to lean on the latter’s 5G network while it builds out its own infrastructure. What’s taking Dish so long? Unlike other carriers, which built their 5G networks on existing 4G LTE, Dish has more or less been building its network from scratch. It’s also building the service on OpenRAN, a flexible type of cellular network that uses infrastructure from multiple vendors.

Dish executives acknowledged that they’d underestimated the work it would take to build their network. The delays, they said, were exacerbated by supply chain issues. .