Dish expects to launch its 5G network this year

Dish Network doubles its price intention to his 5G network in big cities by September, The edge reports. Since Dish acquired Boost Mobile last year, This puts the company in a unique position to compete with existing mobile service providers, and Ergen said this during the company’s earnings call Justice can ‘help the United States actually start wireless again’. Whatever that means.

As part of the merger of T-Mobile / Sprint, the Federal Communications Commission requires T-Mobile sells some of its assets, which include Boost Mobile. (Virgin Mobile customers moved to the Boost Mobile network before the merger, as it was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sprint at the time.) Dish may also use T-Mobile’s network for the next seven years, as it builds its own wireless network. It looks like Dish’s goal is to make Boost Mobile the fourth largest wireless service provider in the US and 5G service, beyond the prepaid plans it currently offers. Piggy-backing on T-Mobile’s network looks to help Dish compete in the market.

But Dish it too gradually bought up wireless spectrum over the past few years, and started already in 2013. It owns low, medium and highband spectrum, which is ideal for providing customers with fast, reliable 5G service, but it is also awaiting the auction results of the coveted C-band spectrum. It will only be available early next month.

The C-band spectrum is like the ‘holy grail’ of wireless broadband spectrum. It’s a massive 280 MHz spectrum and contains nearly 5,700 middleband licenses between 3.7 GHz and 3.98 GHz. There is not that much traffic on these waves, and because there are a lot of people, every 5G wireless carrier competed for some airwave real estate.

It’s the smallest carrier, and Dish is estimated offers about $ 2 billion to grab as many pieces of the C-band as possible, according to to Raymond James analysts, while the other large airlines that have already established their 5G networks could offer between $ 11 and $ 30 billion. Dish will certainly not be the size of T-Mobile or Verizon anytime soon, but more competition will never hurt.