Dish Network identified dozens of 5G deployment markets it will reach ahead of a June 2022 deadline, and announced that it has forged a new agreement that will resolve issues tied to T-Mobile's coming CDMA network shutdown.

The agreement with T-Mobile enters the picture just ahead of T-Mobile's revised plan to shut down its 3G CDMA network on March 31, 2022. Dish and T-Mobile have been bickering over the issue for months, with Dish complaining that the shutdown impacts a bunch of the Sprint Boost Mobile customers it acquired from T-Mobile in 2020.

Speaking Thursday on Dish's Q4 earnings call, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said the agreement with T-Mobile is in front of the FCC and US Department of Justice for review and approval.

He did not detail the specific terms of the agreement, but said it effectively means Dish will support T-Mobile's March 31 CMDA shutoff. "We're working together on communications, on handset supplies, on antennas," he said.

However, AT&T will remain Dish's primary MVNO partner. John Swieringa, president and COO of Dish Wireless, said Dish is now loading a "substantial portion" of Boost mobile customers (as well as other brands, including Republic Wireless), onto the AT&T network.

5G alive in Sin City

Las Vegas is Dish's first 5G network launch market, where service is currently limited to friends and family. Dish intends to open up access to others via its "Project Gene5is" sign-up platform.

"When it works, it works pretty well," Ergen said of the company's 5G network in Las Vegas. "We're not ready to spike the football. We have work to do … to optimize the network. But the technical challenge has been resolved for some of the core things we need to do."

Dish is still ironing out support for Enhanced 911, working with handset-makers to support Dish's frequencies and is still formulating a marketing plan for 5G, but "we're moving at a very fast pace now," Ergen said.

5G network expansion

Dish also revealed it will deploy its 5G network to more customers and in dozens more markets ahead of a June 2022 deadline to cover 20% of the US population. That plan includes more than 25 metro US markets, and more than 100 smaller cities.

Figure 2: Click here for a larger version of this image.
(Source: Dish Q4 2021 earnings presentation)

Figure 3: Click here for a larger version of this image.
(Source: Dish Q4 2021 earnings presentation)

"It's going to be a year of execution" for Dish's wireless business, Erik Carlson, Dish's president and CEO, said. "We have the necessary capital to execute our plans this year."

Dish has held firm that its 5G network will cost $10 billion to build. Dish spent $1 billion on 5G-related capex in 2021 and expects to shell out another $2.5 billion in 2022.

FWA potential

While residential customers and private network deals represent the primary focus of Dish's 5G mobile network, Ergen said he's open to the idea of using its spectrum to support fixed wireless access (FWA) services.

"I think it's a place to play," Ergen said of Dish's potential to support FWA, perhaps through spectrum sharing. Providing FWA in rural areas is a "logical place to start," but it could also be used to support private networks, he added.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading