DISH To Launch Its New Wireless Service in Beta

Executives for Dish Network recently delivered details about the new wireless plan that the company has developed. During an earnings call, they talked about Las Vegas being at the center of the launch for the 5G network and that the company there is an estimate for the beta service to be online by October 1. This estimate coincides with the Q3 goal that the company gave at the beginning of the year as long as there are no issues with the rollout of the network.

It’s important for the beta launch to be done as soon as possible as this is one of the first steps that Dish has in place so that over 50% of the country could be covered by the network by 2023, which is another goal that the company talked about at the beginning of the year. However, Dish has lost many customers in 2021. This could put a damper on the goal of reaching more customers in only a short time. Over 160,000 customers were lost during the first quarter, and over 200,000 were lost during the second quarter. There are only about 8 million customers left with the company. One thing that could be taking customers away from Dish is that T-Mobile started offering a generous incentive to customers to who the company was required to sell Dish when the merger with Sprint took place. With lower prices, Dish customers have decided to switch to T-Mobile.

The beta test in Las Vegas should be complete within 90 days. This can give Dish enough information about the launch to see if there are any issues that need to be fixed before launching the service to other areas in the country. The company will consult with customers to see what they think of the network, using the data received to make improvements. Dish wants to have a seamless transition from its lab to the hands of customers instead of seeing a lot of issues that could be present with the 5G system. The company realizes that it might not work perfectly when it’s launched but that careful research has been used to try to ensure that few problems are seen.

Another project that Dish has been working on is entering a partnership with AT&T. This will allow Dish to use the phone company for most of the wireless service that is provided. During this process, Dish will begin working on its own network so that it doesn’t have to rely on AT&T as much. The partnership and relying on AT&T were details that Dish talked about during the earnings call so that customers could know what to expect going into the future. When the beta test is launched in Las Vegas, it should be completely on Dish’s network. This is one of the reasons why the company isn’t launching the service across the country just yet as it wants to see if it can carry its own network instead of relying on another company. AT&T will likely be a standby for support in the event that there are outages with the launch and so that customers can stay connected to the internet and phone networks while Dish begins the process of fixing any issues that are seen. Customers are encouraged to view details about the test online and to sign up to participate in the test so that Dish has as much information as possible.