EchoStar got ahead of a pair of upcoming deployment mandates for its 5G network, which was a nice victory for the nascent network operator and its Boost Mobile brand.

EchoStar COO John Swieringa noted during the operator’s latest earnings call that the company met government mandates to have 3GPP Release 17 technology “on air” across its network by June 14. The Release 17 specification was finalized by the standards body in 2022, and is seen as the final 5G base technical specification.

EchoStar also has that technology running across more than 24,000 of its own cell site, which hit the additional government deadline.

“These network enhancements further demonstrate our commitment to scaling our network and giving Boost Mobile customers access to the latest technology,” Swieringa said during the call. “As we have expanded and optimized the network, we’ve continued to drive a competitive customer experience, and we’re outperforming the competition in many markets.”

The deadline marks were part of a broader grant from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved last fall. It also included a mandate for EchoStar’s mobile network to cover at least 80 percent of the country’s population with a wireless signal.

While EchoStar has never failed to meet a government-mandated deadline, that success has been helped by repeated approved delays of those deadlines. This also includes new approvals that pushed coverage requirements for some of EchoStar’s spectrum licenses from this year until the end of 2026.

However, the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) this week did open comments on EchoStar's spectrum license management. This includes EchoStar's traditional terrestrial spectrum licenses as well as its satellite-communication focused 2 GHz spectrum holdings.

"Given the importance of robust and efficient use of spectrum as a national resource, as well as the divergent views expressed on the record of this proceeding to date, the Bureau seeks to develop a more fulsome record on whether it should reconsider its decision to grant an extension of the construction deadlines for certain licenses held by EchoStar, or whether there are other measures or actions that it should consider taking with respect to EchoStar’s licenses," the public notice states.

Is EchoStar gaining momentum?

The latest deadline successes continue a more positive trend for EchoStar, which initially stumbled in rolling out its open standards-based 5G network. Company management has repeatedly cited greater than expected complexity in trying to manage the rollout of its cloud-based, open radio access (RAN) network architecture.

Boost Mobile CTO Eben Albertyn during an event last month admitted to those struggles, which the executive explained were caused by it being one of the first in the world to push a greenfield cloud-native deployment. But, the move has allowed the carrier to be more aggressive in vendor management.

“I think open RAN and the technologies that we've used goes far and beyond just that of the radio, it changes the entire way of interacting with your supply chain and your landscape, and there is a lot more control that allows you to manipulate cost and quality in a way that suits your situation,” Albertyn said. “We didn't want to go through all of these pains. We didn't want to go through these changes, but we were, I think, extremely grateful that we had the opportunity to change at will when you're in the situation changed.”

Those changes included having to become the de-facto systems integrator (SI) for its own network deployment, which it initially wanted to have its vendors deal with.

“We were of the conviction that we could go into this journey with the use of partners, and they would actually help us to do most of the heavy lift. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. We actually crashed-and-burned completely,” Albertyn explained. “We had to become the systems integrator ourselves. We had to become an architect and the creator of the underlying infrastructure of the network itself. And we had to become the hub of the spokes around. That was a surprise and a huge slap in the face. We realized that the route that we fashioned was a complete dead end.”

Despite the deployment victories, EchoStar’s wireless business remains a significant work in progress. The operator did manage to add approximately 150,000 net connections during the latest quarter after years of losing customers, but those additions came at an incredible cost. That cost is tied to Boost Mobile attempting to commercially compete with established rivals like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile US, not to mention the dozens of smaller, prepaid operator brands in the market.