Did At T Buy Dish Network
In 2020, Dish Network was ordered to build a 5G network with the capability of covering 70 percent of the U.S. population by June 2023. The alternative? Paying a fine of $2.2 billion. In June 2022, the company announced that it was offering 5G broadband service to over 20 percent of the U.S. population.
did at t buy dish network
"Teaming with AT&T on this long-term partnership will allow us to better compete in the retail wireless market and quickly respond to changes in our customers' evolving connectivity needs as we build our own first-of-its-kind 5G network," John Swieringa, DISH COO and Group President of Retail Wireless, said in the announcement. "The agreement provides enhanced coverage and service for our Boost, Ting and Republic customers, giving them access to the best connectivity on the market today via voice, messaging, data and nationwide roaming on AT&T's vast network, as well as DISH's 5G network."
Dish is in the early stages of building a 5G network and in the meantime is serving customers as a reseller using network capacity that it purchases from T-Mobile. But Dish and T-Mobile are fighting over T-Mobile's plan to shut down its 3G CDMA network earlier than it originally intended, with Dish accusing T-Mobile of anticompetitive behavior.
Against that backdrop, Dish today announced "the signing of a transformative, long-term strategic Network Services Agreement with AT&T, making AT&T the primary network services partner for Dish MVNO [mobile virtual network operator] customers."
The AT&T network capacity will serve customers on Dish's "retail wireless brands, including Boost Mobile, Ting Mobile, and Republic Wireless," Dish said. Dish also said the agreement will accelerate its "expansion of retail wireless distribution to rural markets where Dish provides satellite TV services" and that AT&T will provide transport and roaming services to support Dish's future 5G network.
Dish revealed the $5 billion price in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that also notes that the roaming and transport services from AT&T will not be limited to areas where Dish doesn't build 5G infrastructure. The deal "provides Dish's retail wireless customers with voice and data roaming services throughout the US on the AT&T network and access to AT&T's network, even within the markets where Dish is deploying its own 5G network," Dish told the SEC.
Today's deal between AT&T and Dish is nonexclusive, so Dish can use both T-Mobile and AT&T capacity to serve customers. But Dish's statement that AT&T will become the "primary" network provider for Dish MVNO customers shows that Dish is trying to minimize the use of T-Mobile's network. Dish's MVNO deal with T-Mobile lasts until 2027.
The T-Mobile/Dish partnership grew out of T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint. When the Trump administration's Justice Department allowed that merger, it required T-Mobile to sell Dish the Boost Mobile prepaid business formerly owned by Sprint, as well as spectrum licenses and wholesale access to the combined T-Mobile/Sprint network. The deal was supposed to help Dish become the fourth major carrier to replace the competition lost when the T-Mobile/Sprint merger reduced the number of nationwide carriers from four to three.
Dish says that T-Mobile should have to maintain the 3G CDMA network until at least July 2023, which is three years after Dish's purchase of Boost. Dish said that T-Mobile stated the three-year timeline in a July 2019 SEC filing and in statements to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). For example, T-Mobile told CPUC that it would "support former Sprint customers during the 3-year migration period" and that it will be able to "support Sprint customers who are reliant on LTE and CDMA technologies and to shepherd customers with incompatible handsets through the migration process."
T-Mobile said it didn't commit to a three-year timeline, telling the FCC that "the statements Dish cites were simply acknowledging that T-Mobile has up to three years to fully sunset the legacy Sprint CDMA network... It is absurd for Dish to suggest that these three cherry-picked statements formed the basis of its business plan and should be deemed to override the clear and unambiguous contractual language contained in the MNSA [the Master Network Services Agreement between T-Mobile and Dish]."
T-Mobile further argued that "all CDMA customers, including Dish's Boost-branded customers, will receive enormous benefits by migrating as planned onto T-Mobile's new network, and it is absolutely in their best interest to do so. Under our agreement, it is unambiguously Dish's financial responsibility to migrate customers to the new technology in a timely manner, and if they live up to those obligations, no consumers will be negatively affected by the sunset and in fact will receive substantial benefits."
Dish then called T-Mobile's response an "unconvincing attempt to justify its blatantly anticompetitive decision to prematurely shut down the operation of the legacy Sprint CDMA network" and said it is "indisputable" that "the accelerated shutdown of the CDMA network likely will harm millions of Boost consumers, many who already face economic challenges."
"Dish is not asking for T-Mobile to do anything except honor the commitments it made to regulators under oath and keep the CDMA network operational until at least July 2023," Dish told the FCC. "While T-Mobile had no problem making these statements to give comfort to regulators that its acquisition of Sprint would not result in consumer harms, T-Mobile is now hiding behind narrow contractual provisions in its attempt to perpetrate the exact harms it promised it would not cause."
Instead, Dish has agreed to pay AT&T $5 billion over a 10-year period to secure the telecom giant as its wireless network provider. After four decades focused on satellite TV services, Dish is pivoting to telecom after buying up spectrum and starting to build out a network. It acquired assets including Boost Mobile as a result of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.
LITTLETON, Colo. and DALLAS, July 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DISH (NASDAQ:DISH), announced today the signing of a transformative, long-term strategic Network Services Agreement (NSA) with AT&T, making AT&T the primary network services partner for DISH MVNO customers. Through this agreement, DISH will provide current and future customers of its retail wireless brands, including Boost Mobile, Ting Mobile and Republic Wireless, access to best-in-class coverage and connectivity on AT&T's wireless network, in addition to the new DISH 5G network. The agreement accelerates DISH's expansion of retail wireless distribution to rural markets where DISH provides satellite TV services. AT&T is also providing transport and roaming services as part of the agreement, to support DISH's 5G network.
DISH is committed to providing competition in the wireless market as the nation's fourth facilities-based carrier. The company will continue to build out the nation's first cloud-native, OpenRAN-based 5G network reaching over 70% of the population by 2023.
"Teaming with AT&T on this long-term partnership will allow us to better compete in the retail wireless market and quickly respond to changes in our customers' evolving connectivity needs as we build our own first-of-its kind 5G network," said John Swieringa, DISH COO and Group President of Retail Wireless. "The agreement provides enhanced coverage and service for our Boost, Ting and Republic customers, giving them access to the best connectivity on the market today via voice, messaging, data and nationwide roaming on AT&T's vast network, as well as DISH's 5G network."
For many years, AT&T has been a leader in connectivity. Between 2016 and the end of the first quarter 2021, AT&T has invested more than $140 billion into its wireless and wireline networks, including capital investments and acquisitions of wireless spectrum and operations, to support market demand for communications. The agreement allows AT&T the opportunity to use a portion of DISH's spectrum in various markets to help support DISH customers on AT&T's network.
"Teaming with DISH on this agreement is not only a testament to the strength of our network, but it further validates the investments we've made in our fiber and wireless infrastructure," said Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO, AT&T Consumer. "We welcome DISH wireless and its customers to the nation's largest and best wireless network for all of their streaming, data and roaming needs."
About DISHDISH Network Corporation is a connectivity company. Since 1980, it has served as a disruptive force, driving innovation and value on behalf of consumers. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides television entertainment and award-winning technology to millions of customers with its satellite DISH TV and streaming SLING TV services. In 2020, the company became a nationwide U.S. wireless carrier through the acquisition of Boost Mobile. DISH continues to innovate in wireless, building the nation's first virtualized, O-RAN 5G broadband network. DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) is a Fortune 200 company.
In 2019, DISH entered an agreement as part of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger in which DISH would acquire Sprint's prepaid wireless businesses, including Boost Mobile.[45] As part of this agreement, DISH became the 4th-largest major wireless carrier in the United States.[46] After the merger was approved by the Justice Department, DISH announced plans to "deploy a facilities-based 5G broadband network capable of serving 70% of the U.S. population by June 2023."[46]
On July 1, 2020, DISH officially purchased Boost Mobile from T-Mobile for $1.4 billion.[47] With this purchase it officially launched its wireless business, DISH Wireless, LLC, offering prepaid service through the Boost brand as an MVNO on the T-Mobile network.[7] DISH stated intentions to offer branded postpaid service in the future with the build-out of their own network.[7] DISH also intends to have the first standalone, 5G-only network in the United States.[7] 041b061a72