Dish cuts a 10-year, $5 billion deal to make AT&T the first service supplier for its MVNO

Dish Network has a brand new community operator companion for its MVNO manufacturers: AT&T. The corporations have signed a network services agreement (NSA) that may see Dish pay AT&T a minimum of $5 billion over the course of the subsequent ten years to make use of its 4G and 5G networks as Dish brings its personal 5G community on-line.

The deal takes impact instantly and comes at a time when relations between Dish and T-Mobile — presently a serious community companion — are significantly strained. It’s a nonexclusive settlement, and Dish says that a few of its prospects will doubtless proceed to connect with T-Mobile’s community. The association additionally provides AT&T the fitting to request entry to make use of a few of Dish’s wi-fi spectrum.

Dish owns Boost Mobile, Ting, and Republic Wireless MVNOs, which function on different provider networks. Dish acquired Boost Mobile within the T-Mobile / Sprint acquisition deal, as a part of a scheme to set the corporate up because the fourth wi-fi provider within the US. Dish’s Ting and Republic Wireless acquisitions additionally gave the corporate entry to backend infrastructure and subscribers in anticipation of its launch as a full-fledged cellular provider.

Things haven’t precisely gone easily. There’s the upcoming T-Mobile CDMA shutdown — a community many Boost prospects nonetheless depend on — that Dish says is going on prior to anticipated (T-Mobile’s responses on the matter have had robust “stop hitting yourself” vibes). Dish has additionally been losing wireless subscribers within the a whole lot of 1000’s over current monetary quarters.

AT&T doesn’t function a CDMA community, so this new deal isn’t meant to handle that drawback. At the very least it does embody a two-year transition interval when the settlement ends throughout which AT&T should cooperate to assist customers proceed their service, so Dish can hopefully keep away from extra potential setbacks.