You may not remember this now, but Dish played a pivotal role in getting the long-gestating merger between T-Mobile and Sprint across the finish line. Said merger gave birth to a 5G juggernaut that almost instantly posed a real threat to the long-time wireless industry domination of Verizon and AT&T while simultaneously reducing competition by eliminating one of the market’s top four players.
The (foreign) beginning of a beautiful friendship?
Technical resources + money = success
Adderton has no skin in the US wireless game anymore, but his sources are probably as trustworthy as they come, so chances are Amazon will indeed test the mobile network operator waters somewhere outside North America soon. From there, Adderton seems to enter guesswork territory, predicting that an eventual partnership between Dish and Amazon would be a nightmare scenario for Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T.
Naturally, Amazon has the financial resources to support that difference (and much more), and it may also have the motivation to enter a hugely profitable industry where Dish has a chance to cause “massive destruction of wireless carrier revenue.” While it’s not entirely clear where this “destruction” might come from, Charlie Ergen has repeatedly touted a cost-effective network buildout strategy in the past relying exclusively on virtualization.
