Dish Likely to Pursue Wholesale Spectrum Leasing, Wells Fargo Says
Dish Network could be a stand-alone player in the 5G world due to the company's "unencumbered, contiguous, plug-and-play spectrum," with its smartest and likeliest route being in wholesale leasing, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said in a note to investors…
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Monday. Dish doesn't need to split revenue and profits with a network host when it can build its own for $700 million, and it can make more money "just collecting tolls" than it would in a spectrum sale, Wells Fargo said. If Sprint and T-Mobile pursue a merger, as has been speculated, that regulatory and integration baggage would let Dish slip ahead to become one of the first 5G providers, Wells Fargo said. It also raised the possibility of Dish CEO Charlie Ergen pursuing a partnership of some sort with SoftBank since Ergen and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son share similar thoughts on 5G. SoftBank holds 80 percent of Sprint. Wells Fargo said Dish likely can lease out all its spectrum except the 700 MHz band "because it's just a bit messy."