Dish Wireless has been hard at work building a nationwide 5G network, and starting this September, people will finally be able to see what it’s been working on. As reported by The Verge, Dish’s Las Vegas 5G wireless service is in the final phase of construction and will enter beta testing by the end of September. This was revealed by executives during its August 9 earnings call.
The beta test will last at least 90 days and will be used to gather customer feedback on the network. The test will primarily use Dish’s own 5G network, though roaming will be possible from its new partner AT&T as well as T-Mobile.
Dish has a significant amount of low-band spectrum to use for its 5G network, including a chunk of 800MHz spectrum it got as part of T-Mobile’s purchase of Sprint. This will be similar to the 5G coverage achieved by AT&T and T-Mobile with similar spectrum though Dish’s network will be fully 5G from the very start.
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Dish currently owns Boost Mobile, Ting, and Republic Wireless, primarily relying on T-Mobile’s network for LTE and 5G coverage. There’s no telling how Dish’s future service will stack up against the best cell phone plans currently available, but greater competition is a great thing for consumers.
Dish also revealed in a press release that it lost 201,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2021. Dish still has 8.90 million wireless subscribers but will need to work fast to keep them considering how aggressively T-Mobile is pursuing them.
If you want to test this network for yourself, you can sign up at Project Genesis to be notified when your area is ready.