Dish buys more cell towers and 5G spectrum
Dish is adding 4,000 more cell towers and mid-band spectrum as it builds out its 5G standalone network
Dave Mayo, Dish’s Executive Vice President of Network Development, says, “Securing strong tower partners is a key component of any network expansion, and is tremendously important for DISH’s rapid roll-out of a new nationwide 5G network. Each of these new tower partners will play an important role in bringing or network to life, connecting next-generation wireless service to American consumers and enterprises.” Dish will reportedly have its first major market up and running for its stand-alone 5G towers in Q3 of this year. That would include the time period from July through the end of September. It seems that Fujitsu was late in delivering radios.
Lawrence Gleason, president of Harmoni Towers, said in a statement,”We believe our growing portfolio of newly constructed towers provides a unique opportunity to quickly and efficiently deliver the wireless infrastructure solutions DISH requires.” Christos Karmis, president & CEO of Mobilitie, said, “Mobilitie is proud to be partnering with DISH to support the aggressive buildout of its new national 5G network. With our national portfolio of infrastructure assets, Mobilitie’s top tier team, and our deep experience working with major US cities, we are looking forward to a long-term relationship supporting Dish’s state-of-the-art network and their ground-breaking progress as the industry’s newest national wireless carrier.”
Dish says that it is on track to reach the 15,000 sites it needs for minimum coverage. The deal it made with U.S. regulatory agencies demands that Dish build out a wireless network that covers 70% of the U.S. population by June 2023.
T-Mobile was dying to acquire Sprint, but it had nothing to do with picking up the struggling carrier’s operations. Actually, it was all about 5G. T-Mobile wanted to acquire Sprint’s hoard of mid-band 2.5GHz spectrum. The rare mid-band signals are being used by T-Mobile to complete its 5G triple layer cake. Mid-band signals travel longer distances than mmWave spectrum does and deliver faster download data speeds than low band. Once all of the dust settles, using the layer cake approach is supposed to help T-Mobile bring the fastest 5G speeds to the masses in the U.S.
