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Dish now covers nearly three-quarters of the U.S. population with 5G.
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It was one of the first operators to host its 5G core in the public cloud.
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We are still awaiting the arrival of a 5G iPhone that works on Dish's 5G SA network.
It’s time for the last drive in our summer standalone (SA) 5G road trip, this time taking in the greenfields of new 5G operator, Dish Wireless.
Dish is rolling out a brand new SA 5G network. The operator told us in January that it had hosted its entire 5G core network in the Amazon Web Services public cloud, making it one of the first carriers to do this.
Dish recently announced that it had met its latest Federal Communications Commisson (FCC) deadline, covering 70% of the population of the United States with its 5G network. A Dish Wireless spokesperson was more specific, telling Silverlinings that the network now covers over 73% of the U.S. population, or more than 246 million Americans nationwide.
“Dish has turned its sights to the next FCC-mandated deadline – June 14, 2025 – to offer 5G broadband service to at least 75% of the U.S. in each economic area,” the spokesperson said.
This means that all four major operators in the U.S. – Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and Dish – now offer standalone 5G service. This paves the way to improved consumer services like voice-over-5G (also called VoNR), as well as enterprise offerings, such as network slicing and 5G IoT services that can support millions of devices.
Dish sells this 5G service under various brands. These include the Boost Mobile and Boost Infinite brands, and it even recently began offering its 5G service to Amazon Prime members.
The operator doesn’t yet have that many 5G devices that can use its network yet, though.
“Current DISH 5G network compatible devices include the Motorola edge+ 2022 and 2023, Motorola G stylus 5G 2023, Samsung A23 and the DISH-made, Boost-exclusive Celero 5G+,” the spokesperson said.
Dish executives have said that the operator will offer the Apple iPhone on its 5G network by the end of this year. According to the spokesperson, “iPhone works on our partner networks and we continue to work with Apple to bring their great products to our network."
On a separate note, Dish just announced that it plans to merge with satellite player EchoStar, which should give the operator more financial clout behind its plans for wireless.