4 ms·

> Dish Network has been earmarked as the future 4th carrier If Sprint and T-Mobile are having such a hard time creating competitive networks, what are the chan

> Dish Network has been earmarked as the future 4th carrier If Sprint and T-Mobile are having such a hard time creating competitive networks, what are the chances that Dish will be able to do it from scratch? Everything about this looks terrible for consumers. There's even less competition.

vondur 7y ago
T-Mobile is doing great. The merger with Sprint gives them access to more frequencies for better coverage/speed. I can't say for sure how well Dish will do, but if they have good service/support/prices, then hopefully they will do fine. Better to have a stronger T-Mobile to keep ATT and Verizon on their toes.
DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
Just because Dish has the airwave rights doesn’t mean it will be used for personal mobile telephony - could Dish be using it for other purposes, such as fixed point-to-point transmission - or a StarLink competitor? (Disclaimer: I have no idea if those frequency bands are suitable for satellite comms or not).
- jaywalk 7y ago
  >Just because Dish has the airwave rights doesn’t mean it will be used for personal mobile telephony It certainly will be used for that, unless they've been lying to everyone: http://about.dish.com/2019-07-26-DISH-to-Become-National-Facilities-based-Wireless-Carrier http://about.dish.com/2019-07-26-DISH-to-Become-National-Fac...
  - rrix2 7y ago
    Large communication companies could never do anything like that.... Just lie ? To the public?
- MrRadar 7y ago
  Dish owns a lot of terrestrial-use spectrum, but it's mostly oddball frequencies nobody else in the world is using for cellular service today. IIRC the most "standard" band they own is band 71 (600 MHz, also used by T-Mobile) and a bit of band 66 (standard AWS-3, used by all US carriers), but the rest of their spectrum is band 29 (supplemental downlink only), band 70 (unique to Dish), and (with this merger) band 26 (currently unique to Sprint). They certainly could launch cell service using it but they would pretty much have to custom-order base stations and phones to match the frequency bands they own. This was another problem that Sprint faced (with requiring band 25, 26, and 41 which were all unique to them in the US market).
dougmwne 7y ago
Sprint literally had to give their service away it was so bad. They ran that first year free promotion for years. I'm not sure the other networks were exactly quaking in their boots over that "competition." Verizon and AT&T have always been the first class carriers. If T-mobile can fully catch up to them in coverage that increases competition instead of diminishing it. I agree that Dish is unlikely to become a major player. This is a desperation move for them as their satellite business dies.
- cogman10 7y ago
  In the past few years, T-Mobile has done an excellent job of increasing coverage (at least in my region).
- Moto7451 7y ago
  I can echo this experience. Dealing with Sprint was impossible. Sometimes trying to pay them more money was impossible. The best thing TMobile could do is migrate the customers to the current TMobile infrastructure and software and shred everything at Sprint. Or maybe better, try to convince AT&T or Verizon to buy/adopt it as a form of sabotage.
icelancer 7y ago
>> Everything about this looks terrible for consumers. There's even less competition. Sprint was giving away service, devices, and running promos on top of all of that. Still consumers didn't buy it. What do you want to happen in a situation like this? There was "competition" in the space but consumers had zero interest in engaging with them.

vondur 7y ago

T-Mobile is doing great. The merger with Sprint gives them access to more frequencies for better coverage/speed. I can't say for sure how well Dish will do, but if they have good service/support/prices, then hopefully they will do fine. Better to have a stronger T-Mobile to keep ATT and Verizon on their toes.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago

Just because Dish has the airwave rights doesn’t mean it will be used for personal mobile telephony - could Dish be using it for other purposes, such as fixed point-to-point transmission - or a StarLink competitor? (Disclaimer: I have no idea if those frequency bands are suitable for satellite comms or not).

jaywalk 7y ago
>Just because Dish has the airwave rights doesn’t mean it will be used for personal mobile telephony It certainly will be used for that, unless they've been lying to everyone: http://about.dish.com/2019-07-26-DISH-to-Become-National-Facilities-based-Wireless-Carrier http://about.dish.com/2019-07-26-DISH-to-Become-National-Fac...
- rrix2 7y ago
  Large communication companies could never do anything like that.... Just lie ? To the public?
MrRadar 7y ago
Dish owns a lot of terrestrial-use spectrum, but it's mostly oddball frequencies nobody else in the world is using for cellular service today. IIRC the most "standard" band they own is band 71 (600 MHz, also used by T-Mobile) and a bit of band 66 (standard AWS-3, used by all US carriers), but the rest of their spectrum is band 29 (supplemental downlink only), band 70 (unique to Dish), and (with this merger) band 26 (currently unique to Sprint). They certainly could launch cell service using it but they would pretty much have to custom-order base stations and phones to match the frequency bands they own. This was another problem that Sprint faced (with requiring band 25, 26, and 41 which were all unique to them in the US market).

dougmwne 7y ago

Sprint literally had to give their service away it was so bad. They ran that first year free promotion for years. I'm not sure the other networks were exactly quaking in their boots over that "competition." Verizon and AT&T have always been the first class carriers. If T-mobile can fully catch up to them in coverage that increases competition instead of diminishing it. I agree that Dish is unlikely to become a major player. This is a desperation move for them as their satellite business dies.

cogman10 7y ago
In the past few years, T-Mobile has done an excellent job of increasing coverage (at least in my region).
Moto7451 7y ago
I can echo this experience. Dealing with Sprint was impossible. Sometimes trying to pay them more money was impossible. The best thing TMobile could do is migrate the customers to the current TMobile infrastructure and software and shred everything at Sprint. Or maybe better, try to convince AT&T or Verizon to buy/adopt it as a form of sabotage.

icelancer 7y ago

>> Everything about this looks terrible for consumers. There's even less competition. Sprint was giving away service, devices, and running promos on top of all of that. Still consumers didn't buy it. What do you want to happen in a situation like this? There was "competition" in the space but consumers had zero interest in engaging with them.