Ergen Highlights Dish Network's Long Game in Planned Wireless Launch

Since Dish is coming in fresh building a "green field" network, it can start with a clean slate and use U.S. vendors, said Ergen. The FCC has raised national security concerns that equipment from China may pose in 5G infrastructure, especially in rural America (see 1910290054).

Ergen expressed optimism about the buildout and service launch. "We're a mid-sized company" that will have the chance to compete against giant telecom providers, he said. "It's like moving from triple-A baseball to the major leagues."

Despite industry skepticism that Ergen can successfully compete against three national wireless incumbents, he noted Dish has been bidding on wireless spectrum for 25 years and owns a critical mass. "What we waited for was the paradigm shift." Dish will have advantages over the incumbents as they transition to 5G because it's harder for legacy companies to change, he said.

The 5G market shift allows Dish to put some of its technology in the cloud instead of at the base of a cell tower, Ergen said. He predicted that three years from now, the yet-unbranded company will have both a network advantage and a cost advantage over the incumbents it will compete against.

"We'll have branded handsets," Ergen told us during the Q&A after the keynote. "There are innovations that can be done on a handset." He said customers would be able to port their phones with the new technology, not just their phone numbers. The eSIMs technology already on the market in other countries but not yet here "will be transformative," he said.

Ergen wouldn't say whether Dish would make its own handsets or whether Google would sign on as a partner in some capacity. Dish and Google work together on a voice-activated remote control for the Dish Network direct broadcast satellite product; Dish manufactures the remote, and Google provides the software.

Dish has long backed the need for a fourth national wireless provider, Ergen said. He said Dish was in a better position than Charter Communications to become the fourth national provider after a T-Mobile/Sprint deal because unlike Charter, Dish had held onto its wireless spectrum. "Wall Street applauded when they sold their spectrum, but it wasn't the best long-term play for them." Because Dish was the only company left holding enough spectrum, "T-Mobile ultimately did a deal with us," Ergen said.

Incompas CEO Chip Pickering, who interviewed Ergen for the keynote, told the Dish chairman he had played his hand very well with the DOJ and the FCC in the last months of the T-Mobile/Sprint review.

"Good government policy is very important," Ergen said. "It's one of the things we learned very early, and a lot of companies don't." He said policy changes favoring industry competition helped the company launch a DBS service in the 1990s. Ergen said he'd like the states to do a better job of examining the impact of the wireless market going from four to three or staying at four players. Dish looked into buying Sprint outright seven years ago, Ergen said, but today, he doesn't see Sprint as a strong market competitor.

Several states continue to combat the T-Mobile/Sprint deal in the courts (see 1910250016). The FCC released its order OK'ing the transaction Tuesday after Ergen's talk (see 1911050055). If the deal's allowed to move forward, working with localities during a network buildout "will probably be the toughest part," Ergen admitted. "We don't have control over that." He said the company's experience building an IoT network gave it some experience working with municipalities. He's pleased the FCC has addressed siting rules: "It's much easier to build a network today than a few years ago." The company is expected to build its 5G infrastructure to 70 percent of the U.S. population by 2023 under an agreement with the FCC (see 1908020044).

Ergen told us the company will partner where it can on infrastructure and technology, and where it can't, Dish will do so itself as it did with parts of the DBS launch. Because the company's roots are in rural America, "we think it's a really good fit" to partner with fiber network developers like the ones at Incompas, which "allows us to go faster in urban America," he said.

Dish will take over Sprint's prepaid wireless business under the Boost brand but will have a new brand for its postpaid service, Ergen told us. Dish won't inherit any of the Lifeline wireless subscribers from Sprint, he added. Sprint's Lifeline business is under FCC review for USF violations (see 1909240023). Eventually the new wireless company would participate in the Lifeline program, if Lifeline continues to exist, Ergen said.

Dish was also at Incompas to pitch its Sling over-the-top video service to broadband providers. Incompas plans a DC policy session for members March 3, and the 2020 Incompas Show will be Nov. 2-4 in Las Vegas.