Dish Network remains a bit of a wild card in the U.S. 5G spectrum resources game, albeit a wild card with declining potential value.
Dish presently is building a narrowband IoT network some would characterize as a “minimum viable” way of keeping its spectrum rights, while spending as little as possible to build the network.
Dish appears to envision a wholesale “neutral host” business model, rather than operating as a retail services provider. Dish then says it will follow the NB-IoT network with a full 5G network.
By some estimates, Dish Network has licenses for mobile spectrum worth as much as $40 billion--though some would say the spectrum is worth about $26 billion--that are at risk of forfeiture if Dish cannot get an operating network built, across a substantial part of the United States (essentially reaching 70 percent of all residents), by March 7, 2020.
DISH must offer service in the 700 MHz (6 MHz of capacity) and AWS-4 bands (40 MHz of bandwidth) to 70 percent of the population (or geography in 700 MHz) for each license area by March 7, 2020, and to 75% of the population for each H Block license area by April 29, 2022.
Dish acquired 6 MHz in the 700 MHz band; 40 MHz of spectrum in the AWS-4 band in 2013; and 10 MHz of nationwide spectrum, acquired for $1.546 billion in a 2014 auction.
Dish missed its interim buildout deadlines for its licenses in each of these three bands. And some believe the Federal Communications Commission is skeptical about Dish Network’s good faith and ability to meet terms of the license awards.
Also, some observers believe market demand for the Dish Network spectrum has changed in recent years. Perhaps five years ago it could have been argued that Verizon and AT&T needed so much new spectrum that one of them would have to buy it from Dish Network.
All that has changed as the FCC is releasing huge amounts of new spectrum in millimeter wave bands, shared spectrum at 3.5 GHz, spectrum aggregation, seven gigahertz of new unlicensed spectrum and possibly more mid-band spectrum in the 4 GHz and 6 GHz ranges.
Getting a network operational is necessary to sustain the financial value of Dish Network’s spectrum rights, which many believe will be the ultimate resolution.
“We don't have all the capital we need to do Phase 2. But that capital could come in many shapes and forms,” said Charlie Ergen, Dish Network chairman.
There had been speculation--before the proposed T-Mobile US merger with Sprint--that one of those firms could be a partner for Dish. That is viewed as a foreclosed option if the merger is approved.
Many had argued Verizon was the logical buyer of Dish Network spectrum, but Verizon presently seems to be banking on use of a dense fiber network to support millimeter wave spectrum.
So Dish Network’s long-term options remain a bit unclear.
In this illustration of existing spectrum assets it should be noted that spectrum formerly considered “high band” at 2.5 GHz now are viewed as “mid band,” in the context of millimeter wave commercialization.
Of course, the other matter, beyond sheer quantity of spectrum and its frequency, is the customer base to be supported by any given amount of spectrum. As Verizon and AT&T have most of the customers, they also require most of the spectrum. Sprint owns the most spectrum, but also the fewest customers.
The strategic context of spectrum scarcity has changed, one might argue. There now are many ways to increase the usable amount of spectrum for 5G, ranging from small cell networks to millimeter wave assets to spectrum aggregation of unlicensed spectrum, spectrum sharing, deep fiber networks, better radios and modulation techniques.
Perhaps that picture was not so clear a decade ago, when Dish began thinking about accumulation of 5G spectrum rights. Dish Network’s mobile spectrum gambit was based on the assumption of scarcity.
That might not be quite the case. Though we are far from spectrum abundance, compared to where we have been, that will become the case. So spectrum asset values should fall.
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