Dish Gives Up On Becoming the Fourth Major Wireless Carrier (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0178886450
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/08/26/2052237/dish-gives-up-on-becoming-the-fourth-major-wireless-carrier
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/report/766038/dish-echostar-spectrum-att-sale-fourth-carrier
> As part of T-Mobile's deal to acquire Sprint in 2019, the Department of Justice stipulated that another company must replace it as the fourth major wireless carrier. Dish came forward to acquire Boost Mobile from Sprint, paying $1.4 billion to purchase the budget carrier and other prepaid assets. Since then, Dish has spent billions acquiring spectrum to build out its own 5G network, which the company said was close to reaching 80 percent of the US population as of last year, in line with the Federal Communications Commission's deadline to meet certain coverage requirements.
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> But Dish struggled to repay mounting debt, leading it to rejoin EchoStar, the company it originally spun off from in 2008. And at the same time, it came under renewed pressure from the FCC to make use of its spectrum. In April, the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX wrote a letter to the FCC saying EchoStar "barely uses" the AWS-4 (2GHz) spectrum band for satellite connectivity. Weeks later, FCC chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation into EchoStar's 5G expansion, criticizing the company's slow buildout and claiming that it had lost Boost Mobile customers since its acquisition of the carrier. Carr also questioned EchoStar's use of the AWS-4 spectrum, which isn't included in its deal with AT&T.
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> In July, Carr said that he's not concerned with having a fourth mobile provider, saying during an open meeting that there isn't a "magic number" of carriers needed in the US to maintain competition. "We're always looking at a confluence of different factors to make sure that there's sufficient competition," he said, as reported by [3]Fierce Network . Now, EchoStar will become a hybrid mobile network operator, which is a carrier that operates on its own network, in addition to using other companies' infrastructure. As noted in the press release, Boost Mobile will provide connectivity through AT&T towers and the T-Mobile network. "This ensures the survival of Boost Mobile," [said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics]. "It gives them money, but at the end, they don't have much of a network left."
[1] https://ir.echostar.com/news-releases/news-release-details/echostar-announces-spectrum-sale-and-hybrid-mobile-network
[2] https://www.theverge.com/report/766038/dish-echostar-spectrum-att-sale-fourth-carrier
[3] https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/echostar-still-hook-fcc
Why? (Score:2)
Why does the contract permit these frequency bands to be sold? If they aren't used under the contract that they signed upon purchase, they should be surrendered to the FCC.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that's what Starlink wants. The FCC will put them up for auction and they will go to the highest bidder. Nobody gets higher than Elon Musk.
Re: (Score:2)
Surrendered to the FCC for nothing or sold to some company that wants them? Easy decision. Dish sold the lease since it turned out they could not put the frequencies to a beneficial use.
What was Dish thinking? (Score:2)
I always assumed it was just a forced divestiture of the Boost MVNO brand as a condition of the merger, and that's all Dish had actually acquired/committed to. If running a 4th major carrier was a doomed proposition for Sprint, what made Dish think they'd have any better luck with it?
Re: (Score:2)
It was a shakedown. Straight up mafia stuff.
AT&T has the ear of the current administration, AT&T wanted the frequencies, and the FCC head wanted to wet his beak. That's pretty well it.
The stuff about not using the frequencies was a shameful pretense - over 20,000 towers had already been built out, and coverage and quality and every other metric was in compliance with the FCC demands. Everything needed for Dish to be a player in the mobile space was in place. Which was why the FCC had to put pressure
What competition? (Score:2)
Other than a brief period when T-Mobile was really shaking things up, we haven't had much competition in the cellular phone market. Service now on T-Mobile is worse than it was on Sprint before the merger. AT&T is and has always been a disaster. This leaves Verizon as the de facto major carrier outside of major cities, and even in many parts of major cities.
Calling this competition is a joke. There's Verizon, and then there's everybody else eating the scraps that fall off the table.
But the neat thi
Re: (Score:2)
There doesn't need to be "4" there needs to be 5. You need evidence for 4 not being enough? See Canada.
Basically you need 2 carriers that cover 100% of every square inch of the continent, and 3 carriers that cover the greater metro areas where there would be a shortage of capacity. Those can in fact be one that covers the Pacific, one that covers the Atlantic and one that covers the Gulf and the space between the rockies and the Mississippi. Right now the only "not AT&T or Verizon" carrier is T-mobile,