Back when T-Mobile was still planning to acquire Sprint, there were groups who rallied in front of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for fears that the acquisition would raise prices. This is because Sprint would cease to become a fourth nationwide carrier, thus the competition would be lower.
This prompted Dish Network to step in and promise that it would be the new “fourth nationwide facilities-based network competitor.” As a result, the FCC allowed the merger to happen.
Part of Dish’s agreement with the FCC was that they would cover the country with its 5G signals by June 2023. And while it was able to meet the 20% coverage in June 2022, Dish faces this new challenge of covering 70% of the country.
But as reported by PhoneArena, it looks like Dish is still on par with this commitment. After all, it needs to comply with the deadline or else make a “voluntary contribution” of $2.2 billion to the US Treasury.
In a recent interview, Dish’s Executive VP of Network Development, Dave Mayo, promised that they are able to meet this deadline.
"We have to have 70 percent of the country covered in some 28 days, and we will meet that objective. It took a lot of work to develop and get VoNR (Voice over New Radio or Voice over 5G) right but we cover now 70 million POPs (points of presence) in the country, over 50 markets have a VoNR service that rides on our network."
The problem though is that only a handful of devices are equipped with VoNR support at this time. These devices include the following:
Samsung Galaxy S21 series
Samsung Galaxy S22 series
Samsung Galaxy S23 series
Select Oppo devices
Still, Mayo focuses on the positive– the “record time” it took to build out its 5G network.
"Having better than 235 million covered POPs in just over three years is a pretty remarkable accomplishment."
As soon as they meet the June 30 deadline, Dish Chairman Charles Ergen revealed that the company plans to focus on densification, optimization, and filling in gaps rather than expanding their network to new markets. They will also start marketing their Boost Infinite service later this year.
Right now, Boost Infinite only offers service on Android devices. Dish plans to include the iPhone soon.
Source: PhoneArena
