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Charlie Ergen has been designing to become a mobile tycoon from television for years.
The executive director of the media and former professional poker player has spent $ 25 billion buying a mobile spectrum over the past decade and a half to turn Dish Network, his satellite TV business, into a phone company capable of competing with AT&T sector titans. Verizon and T-Mobile. Eight years ago, Sprint, which was the third-largest network at the time, also reached a $ 25 billion offer.
Earlier this year, Dish announced its intention to become the world’s first telecommunications company to choose to run its service from the public cloud. Dealing with Amazon use its servers to control the new 5G network.
If it works, it would prove the case for a whole type of telecommunications architecture.
According to Ergen, the move to telecommunications company Dish is driven by a “technology paradigm shift” as cloud providers are able to take on all the server and software capabilities needed to run a network.
“That technology is critical. If you’re early, you die on the road but if you’re late you lose the window, ”he told the Financial Times in an interview.
This is due to pressure from the government by telecom companies in the US and UK to use smaller equipment providers after China’s Huawei banned the deployment of new 5G networks for security reasons.
Dish is working with Nokia, but also a long list of US software companies such as Mavenir, Altiostar, Matrixx, Ciena and Palo Alto Networks to provide a network that is seen as a potential pioneer. ‘open RAN’ networks around the world.
“Open RAN” represents a change that allows telecommunications hardware and software from different providers to work together, rather than relying on a large provider like Huawei or Ericsson. This will allow them to enter the 5G market that can be smaller and more innovative providers. The U.S. and UK governments have defended Huawei as a way to increase competition after the ban.
If Dish proves that it can transport a new 5G network quickly at a much lower cost – because it won’t have to build and run its own data centers – its launch could be an important event. “As long as we are successful, others will continue,” Ergen said.
Dish’s 5G network will launch in Las Vegas in the third quarter and this month began customer registration requests through a website called Project Gene5is., but there are many in the industry who are skeptical because the three largest groups will dominate the U.S. telecommunications market.
Some find the $ 8 billion budget to build a new wireless network low. “You can have decent coverage in central New Jersey for $ 10 billion,” said an executive from an opposing telecommunications company, saying the new 5G network is unlikely to have extensive coverage outside of downtowns over the years. This would reduce the attractiveness for consumers and business customers who need to travel.
Others noted that Dish is moving to telecommunications a few months after AT&T launched its investment in new trades, including biraka DirecTV, the nearest competitor to the satellite company.
For some, the wireless push is fundamental to Dish’s survival. The Moffett Nathanson research team argued that Dish’s satellite TV business is likely to report “bottom levels” of new customers in the future.
Even though it’s just starting out, “it’s fair to say that Dish’s core business is more wireless than satellite TV,” analysts said.
Ergen says he has seen doubts in the past. He was named the most hated man in Hollywood because of him high-stakes fights it has a terrifying reputation with content companies. In 2001 he overtook Rupert Murdoch, and thwarted his first attempts to buy DirecTV. Ergen has also been active in Britain, where he surrounded his satellite enemy Inmarsat out of the tender In the eleventh hour of 2018.
He has certainly seen them in doubt in the past. EchoStar launches $ 60,000 in satellite TV – launched in 1980 by installing “old dishes” in rural America that, as there was no reception, threw it off the ground.
The launch of digital broadcasting services for consumers under the Dish (Digital Information Super Highway) brand in 1996 turned it into a serious media player and gave it leadership over cable companies in the pay-TV market. Dish, now separated from EchoStar, has more than 11 million customers and by 2020 had revenue of $ 15.5 billion and a net profit of $ 1.8 billion.
Ergen has directed skeptics about his intentions – as part of the terms attached to his spectrum licenses – to harsh harassment by the U.S. telecoms regulator if it does not build its mobile network to reach 40 percent of the U.S. population by next June. year and 70 percent by 2023. He previously said that the disappearance of these regulatory milestones would be a “financial suicide” for the company.
Dish has a small stake in the mobile market, having acquired the Boost brand in 2020 from T-Mobile. Boost’s 9m customer base is less than a tenth of its major rivals, but Dish has feathers clashing with T-Mobile. “Frustrate the competition” Boost used an old 3G network after it was shut down earlier than expected.
Even with Amazon’s power behind it, Ergen doesn’t promise land. “As a fourth player we don’t think we can conquer the world in the short term,” he said. He added that there is still a high risk of launching a network structure that has not been tried before.
However, he believes his cloud-based network can rebuild his business. “We’re building Netflix in the Blockbuster world,” he said on Tennessee in his distinctive print run. “This is not our first rodeo.”
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