Dish/T-Mobile Network Interoperability Important but Not Considered Big Challenge

Dish Network thinks seamless interoperability between its 5G network and New T-Mobile's LTE network is a big need for its wireless network business plans. And achieving that won't be very difficult, though business competition issues might be heavy lifting, industry experts told us. "It's a tough market," said Boost Mobile founder and current director Peter Adderton said.

In a series of meetings last week with the FCC, including one between Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, described by Dish in a docket 18-197 ex parte posting Friday it discussed its plans for competing in the wireless market once it owns Sprint's Boost Mobile and other assets, under terms of the DOJ consent decree (see 1907260071). Dish said it expects to start a trial of 5G wireless services in an unnamed market early next year, with a nationwide deployment to be done in the first half of 2023.

While that buildout is going on, Dish said its goal is for its customers to be able to roam onto T-Mobile's 4G or 5G network seamlessly. In an overview of a request for information/proposals that Dish said it sent out to numerous vendors, it said the interworking between its 5G network and New T-Mobile's LTE core "is very important" and requires "a consistent (though not equal) level of service in these roaming scenarios" and will require a converged 5G core.

Interoperability across regional networks and establishing roaming agreements “is pretty easy," Adderton said. He said network switching between carriers, even involving 5G networks, is well within the capabilities of companies, and consumers shouldn't experience anything aside from a seamless handoff.

A far bigger issue for Dish will be its seeming lack of expertise in the retail and marketing aspects of wireless, and lack of resources to counter the "marketing might and muscle" of competitors, Adderton said. The major wireless operators now spend significantly on national marketing, he said. Dish's economics until it builds out its network aren't "good enough to fight back," he said.

Wireless subscribers often communicate over networks of competitors to their providers, "though you don't know it," said wireless consultant Jeff Kagan. When a network reaches a capacity point, typically there are arrangements to use competing networks' capacity to avoid down times or dead spots, he said. Switching between 4G and 5G networks might be a little more complicated, but "it's not insurmountable," he said.

Kagan said Dish's bigger challenge is it being an unknown in the wireless world. He said it will have to do what T-Mobile did a handful of years ago, when it "had to punch its way onto the map." "Nobody knew who T-Mobile was," he said, saying Dish also will have to take a marketing approach that's "powerful and quick and loud."

Dish told the FCC its T-Mobile and Sprint agreements give it "more attractive economics" than traditional mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreements, such as pricing, packaging and marketing flexibility; a route for lower costs over time; and core control access. It said it will shift the resources it has dedicated to its narrowband IoT network plans to 5G network deployment.

T-Mobile and Sprint, in meetings with members of the FCC's T-Mobile/Sprint Transaction Team and aides to Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks and Mike O'Rielly, said Dish will pick up at least 400 retail stores under the DOJ consent decree terms. They said Dish is "a serious and credible buyer" of Boost and will able to "compete aggressively" in prepaid services through the long-term MVNO.