Dish Network is better positioned than its competitors, with the most advanced wireless network available, Chairman Charlie Ergen said during a call with investors Monday as the company reported Q1 earnings. Ergen also said he's disappointed the FCC didn’t reallocate the lower 12 GHz band for 5G (see 23042700774). Dish reported customer losses across most of its businesses, finishing the quarter with 7.91 million wireless subscribers, a net loss of 81,000 in the quarter, with churn of 4.57%. The company lost 343,000 in the year-ago quarter.

As NTIA tries to craft a national spectrum strategy, advocates are far apart on whether exclusive licenses for spectrum or reuse and sharing should be the primary focus, per comments submitted this week (docket 2023-0003). It continued to get pushes for repurposing bands including 3.1-3.45 GHz (see 2304170009).

Tower companies are looking to diversify their revenue streams as 5G unfolds, experts said during a Network Media Group webinar Thursday. The rollout of 5G presents “both challenges and opportunities for tower companies, including the need for infrastructure upgrades, competition in a highly regulated industry and potential for diversifying revenue streams,” said Will Townsend, Moor Insights principal analyst-networking.

Use of Wi-Fi has grown to a huge extent, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, experts said Monday during the virtual Fierce Wireless Wi-Fi Summit. But speakers disagreed how quickly adoption of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi, through Wi-Fi 6E, will happen as other bands become more crowded. Commissioners approved an order in April 2020 (see 2004230059) allocating 1,200 MHz in the band for sharing with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use, and other countries followed the U.S. lead.

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved a request by Pine Cellular for a one-year extension to meet the tribal lands bidding credit (TLBC) construction requirement to deploy service to Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma communities in eastern Oklahoma using one of its 600 MHz licenses bought in the TV incentive auction. Pine Cellular got a bidding credit of $2 million and was initially required to construct and operate a system capable of serving 75% of the Choctaw Nation communities within the relevant service area by Jan. 9, 2021. The Wednesday order extends the deadline until Jan. 9, 2024. “We find that strict application of the TLBC construction requirement, which would result in either Pine Cellular’s repayment of its TLBC or automatic termination of its license, is not warranted,” the bureau said: “Neither the repayment of the TLBC nor the automatic termination of the license would facilitate the provision of wireless broadband service to the Choctaw Nation communities, and thus would not serve the public interest or the underlying purpose of the TLBC rule.”

Pockets of the U.S. served by T-Mobile remain LTE only, but “the vast majority” of the network is now 5G, said Neville Ray, T-Mobile president-technology, during a New Street and Boston Consulting conference Monday. Ray said in some areas T-Mobile is leaning on a roaming agreement with AT&T, which has opened up some rural markets through its FirstNet build. T-Mobile’s 5G build hit a peak this year and the company will shift “to what we call customer-driven coverage … making sure that we are investing where it really matters, where there is differentiated need for new coverage or additional coverage from T-Mobile,” Ray said. That includes more in-building coverage and some locations T-Mobile hasn’t yet reached, he said. Ray also noted T-Mobile’s work with SpaceX on satellite connections (see 2209150072). The service will be “text- and messaging-based in the early running” but will evolve to provide more “ubiquitous connectivity,” he said. T-Mobile should be positioned to support as many as 8 million fixed wireless customers in 2025, Ray said. “There is a lot of latent demand for the product that we are bringing to the marketplace,” he said: “From a capacity perspective, we have always been very careful and diligent to make sure that we grow this network for fixed wireless in the right places.” T-Mobile announced Monday that it's now lighting up its stand-alone (SA) core network with its 2.5 GHz spectrum. The SA network has been using 600 MHz spectrum since 2020, Ray said. “The move immediately advances T-Mobile’s network -- unleashing faster speeds for customers across the country while further reducing any lag in the network with lower latency, improving applications like gaming that require near real-time responsiveness,” T-Mobile said.

Dish Network's tower-building pace for its national wireless 5G network -- roughly 1,000 a month -- is putting it within "spitting distance" of meeting its next 600 MHz buildout milestone, well ahead of the 2025 deadline, CEO Charlie Ergen said Wednesday in a call with analysts as Dish released Q3 results. He said the $2 billion the company announced it was raising for its 5G network will cover the costs of meeting its milestone of reaching 70% of the U.S. population.

5G is happening, but more slowly than hoped, especially for companies that will use the new generation of wireless to transform their business, said Andreas Mueller, Bosch chief expert-IoT communication technologies, Wednesday during day two of New York University’s in-person and virtual Brooklyn 6G Summit, also sponsored by Nokia. Other speakers said industry is already looking to 6G.

T-Mobile plans to buy 600 MHz licenses it has been leasing from Columbia Capital for $3.5 billion, the carrier said in an SEC filing. The deal requires approvals from regulators, including the FCC, but is expected to get them easily, especially since T-Mobile is already using the spectrum covered by the leases. The first stage of T-Mobile’s 5G build used its 600 MHz spectrum. T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik said at a financial conference Tuesday the company doesn’t expect the deal to close for at least a year.

Major U.S. tower companies, buoyed by the ongoing 5G buildout, had positive Q2s, in contrast with major wireless carriers, with AT&T and Verizon both navigating rough waters during the quarter (see 2207270054). SBA Communications, the last of the big three tower companies to report, released results Monday.