Dish Network currently owns 40 MHz worth of wireless spectrum that they’ve said they plan on using to roll out an LTE-Advanced network. They have the potential to disrupt America’s current wireless space to such a degree that it’s difficult to put into words. There is a slight snag though. Dish knows absolutely nothing about the wireless space, but that’s where Sprint and Clearwire come in. Joseph Clayton, the CEO of Dish Network, said in an interview with Bloomberg last week that the company is looking “at partnerships, acquisitions, [or] all of the above” to speed up their plans to become an operator. Sprint’s obvious strengths are that they’re an established brand that offers highly competitive devices; rumors even suggest they’ll get the next iPhone. Then there’s Clearwire, who also has a ton of spectrum, and they’ve recently announced that they’ll be switching from WiMAX to “LTE-Advanced Ready” technology, pending they can get an influx of cash.
If the stars align correctly then we’ll see Dish Network buying Sprint and Clearwire, put their existing cell towers to good use by adding LTE-Advanced support, deprecate any legacy technology, and finally go head to head with AT&T and Verizon. Both AT&T and Verizon offer voice, data, and television services, while none of the other wireless operators do. If Dish plays their cards right, they can become a viable third player. Now before you get excited, note that nothing has been agreed upon yet, and a lot can happen over the coming years. Next month we’ll hear Sprint’s update on what they plan to do with the network, and in early 2012 we’ll find out if AT&T will indeed gobble up T-Mobile.
Expect to hear more about this over the course of the coming weeks. We’ll be keeping an extremely close eye on this since it’s potentially going to be the biggest wireless story of the next few years.