Dish will take on T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T with a new postpaid wireless brand in 2022
Although the fourth-largest US wireless carrier (after Sprint's death) is going ahead with its plan to launch the "Netflix" of 5G networks this year, it will obviously take a while for Dish to achieve the kind of cellular penetration it needs to truly give the competition a run for its money.
In the meantime, the satellite TV veteran is taking steps to ramp up the fight against Verizon, AT&T, and especially T-Mobile on a couple of other fronts, recently switching primary network services partners for its prepaid brands and now preparing its entry into the postpaid market.
Technically, Dish Network already owns a postpaid mobile service provider in Ting, but unsurprisingly, the company has bigger goals in the industry, looking to maximize profit with an "innovative" new thing positioned directly against T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T's most successful products right now.
Dish thinks there's a "huge opportunity" to take its "best prepaid customers and move them over" to the unnamed and overall very mysterious new postpaid brand at some point in 2022, when we obviously expect said customers will be able to enjoy blazing fast 5G connectivity on a modern network in more than just a couple of markets.
Because Charlie Ergen, the company's co-founder and chairman, is known for talking a big game without always delivering the goods, it remains unclear for the time being just how seriously we should treat these latest promises from Stephen Stokols, who currently oversees the Boost Mobile business for Dish.
What seems very serious is Dish's intention to reevaluate its increasingly complicated relationship with T-Mobile. In theory, the company would like to "straddle" T-Mo and AT&T to have two networks at its disposal for prepaid Boost Mobile customers.
That sounds like an excellent business plan, but it's made a little difficult by T-Mo's "anti-competitive, aggressive, and combative" attitude towards Dish. The "Un-carrier" is being accused of seeking vengeance after being "dumped" with a killer new prepaid deal that allegedly undercuts Dish's wholesale network access rate.
Basically, Magenta is charging Dish more to use its network than it's now charging actual customers, making it mathematically impossible for its ally turned worst enemy to stay competitive without bleeding money. It remains to be seen if the two parties will be able to bury the hatchet and ultimately find a way to continue doing business together or if Dish will completely break up the relationship and go steady with AT&T.
Either way, we're pretty sure everyday consumers will not care very much about Dish's inability to turn in a wireless profit, instead undoubtedly relishing the opportunity to get both one of the best budget 5G phones available today for free and unlimited everything (5G data included) for a measly $25 a month on T-Mobile's prepaid service.
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