The first truly new wireless carrier of the 21st century is here, and unlimited service is just $30.
Dish is now selling phones that work on its brand-new 5G network in Las Vegas, marking the launch of the first truly new nationwide US wireless carrier in decades.
Right now, the company is starting small, with one city. Phones will roam (without cost) on national networks when they leave Dish's coverage area in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada. But Dish has said it intends to cover at least 125 cities and towns, more than 20% of the US population, by June.
The company has a single phone, the $899.99 Motorola Edge+, and a single plan, a $30/month unlimited plan. The current network relies on Dish's low-band n71 spectrum for range and mid-band n66 spectrum for speed. With limited airwaves, it probably won't be the fastest, but it looks like it will deliver a respectable low-cost experience.
Dish has other future airwaves in the hopper. The company's n70 band is waiting for support from phones, which should come later this year. It also bought a lot of mid-band n77 3.45GHz spectrum, which is waiting for network equipment to become available; that will also start to happen later this year.
Overall, though, its strategy seems to be to triumph on affordability and small-city coverage, not on speed tests where it would have to catch up to companies that have been buying up spectrum since 1983. Dish also owns Boost Mobile, Republic Wireless, and Gen Mobile. All of those brands operate on the three other major carriers' networks for now.
The initial single-phone, single-city launch comes out of of Dish's previous "Project Genesis" friendly beta user program, Jeremy McCarty, Dish's GM of retail wireless, tells us.
Users will be encouraged to give feedback through a gamified Project Genesis app, where they'll get various kinds of rewards for various levels of feedback.
"All of the phones, at least initially, will be hand-delivered by a Project Genesis ambassador. Someone will actually be bringing the phone to you, they'll go through setup, and then we'll run people through how to use the app," he said. "On the other end of the app is our Project Genesis 5G engineers."
The feedback will help Dish tune network performance and learn things it needs to expand beyond Las Vegas. After all, it's never done this before.
"Getting the first [city] up and running is the hardest. Doing that well is hard, and once you get that done, you have a really good playbook to take to the rest of the markets, to get launched relatively quickly," McCarty said.
It's hard to overstate how important this launch is, and how wrong I was about it. All of the major US mobile phone operators—AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, US Cellular, even C Spire—launched their original networks in 2000 or before. Dish is the first truly new network with national ambitions in decades.
How it got there led to my suspicions that it never would. The company has been buying up airwaves(Opens in a new window) since 2008 without ever launching a network, and eventually ended up interposed in the middle of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger(Opens in a new window) in 2019 as an answer to the loss of competition created by turning four national carriers into three. Dish's decade-long penchant for spectrum hoarding led me to believe it would just continue to hoard.
But now the gates to the dragon's trove are open, and the glittering 5G gold is being distributed to the populace. We'll test Dish's new network as soon as we can—and several times over the next year—as we survey this exciting new competitive option.
Dish is anticipated to announce more about its new network at its investor's day on May 10. You can sign up for service here(Opens in a new window) .
Sign up for Fully Mobilized newsletter to get our top mobile tech stories delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I've reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also write a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsess about phones and networks.
US and Canadian mobile networks
Mobile phones released in the US
iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities
Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.
I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.
In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services.
My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.
My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.
PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
© 1996-2022 Ziff Davis. PCMag Digital Group
PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant.