With Dish’s first deadline looming, the corporation has revealed a new partner: Samsung. While attempting to create a 5G network from the ground up, the company has joined Dish as a vendor.
Dish isn’t just developing any old 5G network. The network is built on a modern, cloud-based technology known as O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network), which uses off-the-shelf (rather than proprietary) hardware. Samsung is offering vRAN software and radio modules to aid in the operation of the system.
Dish guaranteed the FCC that its new network will reach 20% of the population by June of this year, a milestone on the route to covering 70% of the population by June of 2023. The project has been beset with setbacks, and for those keeping track at home, June is just around the corner. Dish’s most recent earnings conference did not portray the best picture of the network’s present state; as of February, it was still in beta testing with friends and family in Las Vegas. Vegas has a lot of things, but it does not have 20% of the US population within its borders.
Dish Network isn’t Samsung’s first collaboration with a US-based network operator. It previously assisted Verizon in expanding its low-band Nationwide 5G network through a technology known as DSS or Dynamic Spectrum Sharing. Let’s only hope that this new relationship with Dish outperforms the previous one because the time is ticking.
