Inside Towers reported yesterday it appeared DISH Network met the FCC’s deadline to offer 5G service to 20 percent of the country’s population. Late Tuesday the company confirmed that working with partners like AWS, Cisco, CommScope, Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, JMA, Mavenir, Nokia, Oracle, Palo Alto, Qualcomm, Samsung and VMware made the 120+ city launch possible using its AWS-4, PCS H Block and 700MHz E Block licenses.
DISH EVP Network Development Dave Mayo claimed that DISH is “the only major network” in the world built “primarily with American vendors.” He also claimed another milestone, saying the company is using the “first and only” cloud-native O-RAN network.
DISH’s Smart 5G™ network commercially launched through Project Genesis, offering DISH wireless service in Las Vegas in May, Inside Towers reported. The Samsung Galaxy S22 and the NetGear 5G hotspot are currently offered to Project Genesis subscribers. DISH offers the Motorola Edge+ for purchase in Las Vegas and plans to expand the sale of this device to more markets in the coming months.
If it had missed the deadline, the company could have incurred a fine of up to $200 million, according to Jonathan Chaplin of New Street Research. It would also not have resulted in the forfeiture of any DISH spectrum licenses, he wrote in a research note.
What’s Next?
Now that DISH has met its original coverage deadline, it must cover 70 percent of the U.S. population by June 14, 2023. New Street estimates that to require “17,000 cell sites covering 375k square miles.” That’s up from the “4k cell sites covering 125k square miles” the analysts estimate the company needed to meet the 20 percent deadline.
“Dish has been consistently confident of meeting the 70 percent deadline in 2023,” writes Chaplin. “We assume the majority of sites required to meet this deadline are in process already.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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