Dish Network remains a company straddling the realms of fiction and reality as it faces a deadline to provide 5G service to at least 20% of the U.S. population by the beginning of this summer. It has no operator-owned and commercially available network to speak of today. 

Ironically, the longstanding uncertainty about whether Dish will or won’t become a true wireless network provider rides first on a bet it made in Las Vegas to become a showcase city for its cloud-native 5G open radio access network (RAN) running largely on the public cloud.

Company executives remain steadfast in their collective commitment to prove Dish can and will meet its goal of becoming a nationwide 5G provider, but they also readily admit it’s been more difficult than expected.

“We’re six months behind where we thought we’d be, and it’s my fault. We just didn’t maybe anticipate that we would have to do as much on the technical side,” Dish chair and co-founder Charlie Ergen said on the company’s fourth-quarter of 2021 earnings call. 

“Ultimately we found that we had to become the system integrator. It wasn’t a role that we thought we were going to take on. But with all the vendors, somebody’s got to be the middleman between them and be the glue that holds them together,” he said. “We probably squandered some time, but that’s my fault.”

Rakuten Mobile experienced many of the same challenges prior to commercially deploying its largely 4G LTE open RAN in Japan.

Nonetheless, Ergen remains equally forthright on the challenges Dish has encountered in building a first-of-its-kind network and his unwavering confidence in the company’s ability to overcome these problems. 

Dish Claims Las Vegas is Live, With Caveats

“Our network in Vegas we actually have operational now on a 5G standalone network that operates in open RAN with open RAN principles. It’s cloud native in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud with voice over new radio (VoNR),” Ergen said.

“That is the most advanced network in the world,” he boasted. However, the flipside of that remains mired in Dish’s need to optimize its network at every cell site, according to Ergen. “When it works, it works pretty well. We still have work to do. We’re not ready to spike the football,” he said. 

Outstanding issues in Las Vegas, the first of many cities to come, includes enhanced 911 service, VoNR technology, network optimization, and working with device manufacturers to ensure VoNR and all of Dish’s spectrum frequencies are supported, Ergen explained. 

While Dish claims its 5G network is live in Las Vegas, it’s only been made available to friends and family to date. The company will start opening up access to customers in multiple markets in the coming months, CEO Erik Carlson said.

“We’ll hit our June milestone with 20% of the population covered. We currently have over 25 major metro markets ready to be deployed before the deadline, including around 100 smaller cities across the country,” he said.

Cumulative 5G Network Capex to Hit $3.5B by 2023

By year end, Dish expects to have spent a cumulative $3.5 billion capex on its 5G network buildout, and Ergen claims that total spend will bring it well beyond the 20% population coverage requirement that hits in June. 

The actual cost of building a nationwide 5G network, a feat Dish has steadfastly claimed it can hit with $10 billion in capex, remains in dispute among industry analysts and observers. 

Despite Ergen’s comments about the unexpected complexities associated with designing, assembling, and deploying a 5G open RAN, he also claims $10 billion “is a real number” because the network build is “very simple compared to our competitors.” 

Dish Chair Walks Fine Line Between Challenges and Simplicity

It’s a somewhat contradictory message that Ergen tried to explain as anything but because most of Dish’s network cost comes from the cloud, rather than the base of each tower. “We really just have a server and the batteries” in each tower paired with one set of antennas for low- and mid-band spectrum, he said. 

“The technical challenge has been resolved for some of the core things that we needed to do,” Ergen said. 

“We have a lot of work to do to make it work everywhere and to light up 25 cities in the next 100 days,” he added. “The good news is we’re going to get there. The bad news is we’re not there yet.”

Finally, Ergen reiterated what he considers the importance of building a 5G network running in the cloud and on open RAN principles — an accomplishment he considers impactful for both the industry and the United States’ technological position globally.

“The United States can suddenly get some leadership back that they gave away years ago,” he concluded.