Dish Network continues to win deals in the private networking space and having its own spectrum licenses puts it in a favorable position, according to company executives.

Dish started out talking about private 5G, and that’s sort of evolving into a private 5G as a service solution, according to Stephen Bye, EVP and chief commercial officer at Dish. 

ā€œWe continue to win more projects and take on more opportunity with the Department of Defense,ā€ he said during the companyā€™s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

He couldnā€™t get into a lot of detail on those projects. However, he said the company is also active in other verticals, including hospitality, industrial manufacturing and utilities.

ā€œWeā€™re seeing growing momentum as we step into ā€˜23,ā€ Bye said. ā€œWe expect that deal flow to continue to grow and weā€™re excited about the opportunity.ā€

In order to build these private networks, ā€œit is absolutely vital to have access to licensed spectrum,ā€ he said, noting that theyā€™re running into different players in this space who are offering private wireless via CBRS solutions using GAA or Wi-Fi, and ā€œwhat weā€™re hearing more and more from customers is that just doesnā€™t cut the grade,ā€ he said.

These customers need access to licensed spectrum, and itā€™s actually very important to have access to more than one spectrum band, including 3.5 GHz using Dishā€™s Priority Access Licenses (PALs) and low-band spectrum, he said.

ā€œWeā€™re obviously in a very good position with the spectrum portfolio that we have today,ā€ he added.

In the private 5G space, Dish works with JMA, Cisco, Dell, Hughes and others.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said itā€™s going to be a big part of Dishā€™s wireless business, which was designed to be an open wholesale network. The advantage over legacy networks is the software- and cloud-based nature of the architecture.

ā€œWe think the incumbents are going to get their fair share of the business,ā€ but with a network designed the way Dishā€™s is designed, they can get 25% of that business, and thatā€™s going to be a very profitable one for Dish, he said.

Ergen said as they move to the 70% population target for the 5G network build, the last 30% costs about as much as the first 70% and it might even be more than that.

He also said that a lot of towers rented by current incumbents are not profitable for them. ā€œWe donā€™t have to make that investment,ā€ because they can roam on MVNO partner networks.

Of course, when Dish rides on their networks, theyā€™re getting ā€œfree moneyā€ for an investment theyā€™ve already made, he said.

Interestingly, while Dish has had its run-ins with T-Mobile in the past ā€“ Ergen calling T-Mobile the ā€œmagenta Grinchā€ comes to mind ā€“ today he acknowledged that T-Mobileā€™s going gangbusters.

ā€œI personally see, when you take a look at the marketplace, T-Mobile is running away with the market. Theyā€™re just going 90 miles an hour and theyā€™re running away with thingsā€¦ They have a higher market cap than Verizon and AT&T now, so ā€¦ I think they were No. 4 when we first started talking with T-Mobile years ago. Theyā€™re now No. 1ā€ and continue to gain momentum.

ā€œThereā€™s going to be opportunities for all the players in this market, but thereā€™s going to be good opportunities for us,ā€ Ergen said.

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