Dish Network is expanding its fixed Internet service portfolio with a new distribution deal with AT&T that will allow it to expand its fiber coverage.
While AT&T is screaming about the deal, Dish itself hasn't announced anything yet. While AT&T's announcement states that the deal is effective immediately, there is no mention of a new partner on Dish's website. Presumably, it was only a matter of time, since the provider lists its various ISPs as DSL, fixed wireless, wireline, satellite and fiber; in the last category, its partners include Frontier, Cox and CenturyLink.
The addition of AT&T will naturally add more color to Dish's presence in the consumer Internet market.
"Adding AT&T Internet to our strong lineup of TV and home integration services enhances our ability to deliver better overall service, technology and value to our customers," Amir Ahmed, executive vice president of DISH TV, said in an AT&T statement. Presumably, the deal also increases Dish's reach.
The deal is (quite) hot on the heels of Dish's multibillion-dollar mobile network services deal with AT&T last summer. The partnership, worth more than $5 billion over 10 years, will allow Dish to use AT&T's mobile infrastructure for its Boost Mobile MVNO, for roaming purposes, and to expand its 5G footprint.
The long-awaited 5G launch finally took place earlier this month, albeit without much fanfare, and the service is still only available in a limited area of Las Vegas. The telco must reach 20 percent population coverage by mid-June, which seems like a big ask, but comments from multiple company executives in recent months suggest it's confident it can achieve that goal.
The carrier is building a cloud-native network based on Open RAN technology and earlier this month announced its latest equipment vendor deal with Samsung. It also told Light Reading this week that while it signed a high-profile public cloud deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for its 5G network last summer, it is open to working with other cloud service partners. Specifically, "we're hybrid multi-cloud," telecoms.com's sister company quoted Sidd Chenumolu, vice president of technology development at Dish, as saying at its Big 5G Event.
That flexibility and its choice of network architecture will help Dish meet its 5G deployment goals in the U.S., which include a requirement to cover 70 percent of the population by June 2023.
It has AT&T on board to help with the rest. And now, AT&T can also provide the company's fixed Internet service. All in all, Dish is starting to look very much like a full-service carrier, which is certainly what regulators had in mind when they forced the sale of Boost Mobile to a fourth national carrier nearly two years ago.
