Dish has been slowly building its own 5G network in the United States, making it the new fourth major carrier alongside AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. That effort has now reached a major milestone. The network is mature enough to meet the FCC’s definition of “nationwide” in the United States.
EchoStar Corporation, which recently completed its merger with Dish Network (the two were one company until 2008), says its 5G cellular network now “provides download speeds of 35 Mbps or more to more than 70% of the U.S. population.” We are doing so,” he announced. This is a deployment that EchoStar committed to in its previous agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and fulfills the company’s final deployment commitment to the FCC. EchoStar’s 5G network became his nationally certified 5G network based on drive testing “using FCC-approved methodologies and monitored by independent monitors.”
T-Mobile and Sprint merged into one company in 2020. One of the terms of the merger was that he would sell radio spectrum to EchoStar (then called Dish Network), and EchoStar would agree to use that spectrum to build its own radio spectrum. It was to do. Communication network. The idea was for EchoStar to create a new fourth major network in the US, replacing Sprint’s position in the US market. The deal required EchoStar to meet certain milestones within deadlines set by the FCC, or face hefty fines.
EchoStar’s network rollout has been slow, initially launching in select cities in 2022 as Project Genesis. Most recently, this network was rolled out to customers of Boost Mobile (also owned by his EchoStar) in addition to existing AT&T and T-Mobile cell coverage. Perhaps EchoStar’s own network will be the main network used across all the carrier’s subsidiaries: Boost Mobile, Ting, and Gen Mobile, but we don’t know when that will be ready.
While it’s great to see a true competitor to T-Mobile, AT&T, and T-Mobile materializing, EchoStar still has work to do. The easy part is that EchoStar doesn’t have the same legacy infrastructure as other carriers. T-Mobile is still struggling to turn off its 2G network because some devices can’t move to 5G or LTE, but EchoStar’s network has been using 5G since the beginning and is currently is making extensive use of VoNR (Voices over 5G).
Source: Dish
