By Sean Kinney, Editor in Chief
In its ongoing effort to shield customers from coming 3G network shutdowns while working on resell arrangements with both AT&T and T-Mobile US, DISH is working to build out its own cloud-native 5G network to meet coverage requirements mandated by the FCC as part of the T-Mobile US/Sprint merger arrangement. DISH executives, in an Aug. 9 earnings call, discussed near-term network construction activities and highlighted how its open architectural approach will position it to address the red hot private enterprise 5G market.
DISH previously articulated that its first 5G market will be Las Vegas, and Executive Vice President, Network Deployment, Dave Mayo said construction in Las Vegas will be “substantially complete…in the next 60 days…We’ll be beta testing customers in the fourth quarter,” according to a transcript of the call provided by Seeking Alpha.
Mayo described the company’s “decentralized approach” to building out a network in order to become the fourth facilities-based mobile network operator in the US, noting a four-region, 36-market approach. He said initial markets “are substantially al colocations…We’ve signed substantially all the leases that are required to meet our 20 per cent mandate for next June and have received notices to proceed on close to a third of the sites.” He said DISH has “commenced construction…in 30 geographies within those 36 markets.”
On the beta testing period planned for the fourth quarter with customers in the Las Vegas area, DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen reminded Wall Street that the company was proceeding on a 5G network build marked by cloud-native core and Open RAN, alongside integrations with both AT&T’s and T-Mo’s networks.
Ergen said, based on his experiences, “Things don’t work exactly right the first month or two, and you’ve got to integrate that…We will have retail. Obviously, Vegas, as in other cities, it will light up very quickly…We’ll have a retail presence and we’ll have offers for consumers that we think will be competitive.” He predicted a beta period of “at least” 90 days.
DISH sees its private enterprise 5G network capabilities as “unique” compared to other Tier 1s
As for private enterprise 5G networks, a market niche that’s set for a prolonged boom with early projects in Europe giving a glimpse of how wireless figures into industrial digitalization, DISH sees its cloud-native network as a differentiator. Specifically, a fully cloud-native network will allow it to sell virtually partitioned slices of its network tuned to the particular needs of an industrial user. While there’s different flavors of private networks, including networks deployed in spectral set asides and fully owned and managed by the end user, DISH would be carving up its public network in a manner that, to an enterprise user, would work like a bespoke build.
Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Stephen Bye said the company is working on multiple RFPs and RFIs for private networks and also “working on proofs of concepts,” and engaging with system integrators “as we bring the services to market.”
Bye continued: “The good thing about these private networks that we’re working on is they’re not constrained by the geography of building our macro network. So, we’re able to serve customers in different geographies within that environment. And then, the other thing, which is also important to highlight, it’s across all verticals. There isn’t a specific vertical that has an interest in this. We’re seeing interest across every vertical and every industrial segment.”
He said the network capabilities DISH is planning to develop are “unique compared to what the other operators have in the market today. And so, not to say that they can’t get there in the future, but we clearly have an advantage today that we’re taking advantage of.”
