AT&T Aquires some DISH Spectrum

[navychop]

The hardware was delayed how many years? COVID. Other delays outside his control?

I think he should be cut some MAJOR slack.

 

[Juan]

The hardware was delayed how many years? COVID. Other delays outside his control?

I think he should be cut some MAJOR slack.

I think he was

 

[Yespage]

It was Charlie's goal to become a revolutionary leader in the 5G market and be a top dog facilities based provider, and as of right now they are still a facilities based MNO and will be for a while until the sale of the spectrum gets approved, So it's only fair to compare the failure that is Dish Wireless to their peers until they are 100% officially an AT&T MVNO.

The experiment failed, Dish really has no reason to keep Boost long term. Comcast and Charter use their MVNO agreement with Verizon as a customer retention ploy to keep people from ditching their home internet service. That is not applicable in Dish Network's circumstance. Unless they launch LEO satellite service to compete with Starlink and tie a Boost subscription to that.

They lost subscribers, they gained some back, it's a nothing burger, they are still behind big cable.

Being a tad bit harsh here. Yes, it appears that the 5G gamble didn't pay off, but the fact that Dish had a cell company at all was nothing really short of brilliance on Ergen's part. He was able to leverage a merger of two other companies to get a mobile company of his own. That was outrageous.

What hurt Ergen was 5G had technical issues that were destined to prevent it from being what it was advertised as and then the impacts of the pandemic (labor, supply costs -> inflation). Add in Dish's awful capacity to advertise effectively (at all?) and this wasn't going to work, particularly with that much debt hanging over head.

It was a gamble, Ergen managed to get a mobile company rollout further than anyone would have thought possible 15 years ago. But the science of 5G and a coronavirus interceded. And that was that.