AT&T Sets A Comically Narrow Definition Of “Service Outage” After Particularly Embarrassing Wireless And 911 Outage

Failures

from the not-with-a-bang,-but-with-a-whimper dept

In February 2024, AT&T bungled a network update causing a massive outage that it took AT&T twelve hours to fix. DownDetector lit up with 70,000 problem reports. The outage impacted an estimated 125 million wireless devices, blocked an estimated 92 million phone calls by AT&T customers, and prevented an estimated 25,000 attempts to reach 911.

A several months-long investigation by the FCC found that AT&T hadn’t bothered to test its planned network upgrade before installing it. The FCC’s enforcement bureau had this to say at the time, absolutely none of it good:

“The Bureau finds that the extensive scope and duration of this outage was the result of several factors, all attributable to AT&T Mobility, including a configuration error, a lack of adherence to AT&T Mobility’s internal procedures, a lack of peer review, a failure to adequately test after installation, inadequate laboratory testing, insufficient safeguards and controls to ensure approval of changes affecting the core network, a lack of controls to mitigate the effects of the outage once it began, and a variety of system issues that prolonged the outage once the configuration error had been remedied.”

Whoops a daisy. Keep in mind this is just one of several recent instances where AT&T (which gets slathered with billions in taxpayer subsidies and is intimately connected to our domestic surveillance systems) has been involved in an ugly 911 outage. The oversight of which AT&T lobbyists have been working tirelessly to dismantle with the help of a Trumplican-stocked court.

Initially, AT&T stated it would immediately be issuing credits to impacted customers “for the average cost of a full day of service,” which isn’t much of anything. But as time has gone on, Ars Technica notes that AT&T has also comically narrowed what it defines as an “outage,” including stating a certain number of towers have to be affected for you to get even a measly credit:

“The “AT&T Guarantee” announced today has caveats that can make it possible for a disruption to not be covered. AT&T says the promised mobile bill credits are “for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers.”

The full-day bill credits do not include a prorated amount for the taxes and fees imposed on a monthly bill.”

And of course a lot of your wireless and broadband bill is bloated, bullshit fees (like “regulatory recovery”) that aren’t real taxes, but are just part of the cost of service buried below the line with a new silly name, so your wireless carrier can falsely advertise a lower price.

So not only are AT&T outages a routine thing, your ability to actually get any sort of compensation for them (even in instances where they make be life and death) continue to dwindle. All while AT&T lobbies Trumplicans and their increasingly corporate-loyal court system to dismantle whatever’s left of coherent U.S. federal consumer protection (you know, for “populism” or whatever).

What could possibly go wrong?

Filed Under: 911, broadband, cellular, consumers, emergency, fcc, outage, refunds, telecom, wireless
Companies: at&t

Now Telecoms Are Fighting Among Themselves Over Who Lies More About ‘Unlimited Data’

Overhype

from the that-word,-I-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means dept

For decades now, U.S. wireless carriers have sold consumers “unlimited data” plans that actually have all manner of sometimes hidden throttling, caps, download limits, and restrictions. And every few years a regulator comes out with a wrist slap against wireless carriers for misleading consumers, for whatever good it does.

Back in 2007, for example, then NY AG Andrew Cuomo fined Verizon a tiny $150,000 for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited (Verizon kept doing it anyway). In 2019, the FTC fined AT&T $60 million for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited, then repeatedly lying to consumers about it (impacted consumers ultimately saw refunds of around $22 each).

It’s gotten slightly better, but it’s still a problem. Providers still impose all manner of weird restrictions on mobile lines and then bury them in their fine print, something that’s likely only to get worse after Trump 2.0 takes an absolute hatchet to whatever’s left of regulatory independence and federal consumer protection.

In the interim, telecom providers are even bickering about the definition of “unlimited” between themselves. For example Verizon is mad that Charter Communications (a cable company that got into wireless) is advertising its wireless service as “unlimited,” while telling users they can “use all the data you want.”

As usual that’s not true. There’s all manner of deprioritization that goes on should users actually try to do that. Once you hit a certain download amount, your connection speeds are “reduced.” Charter doesn’t tell you up front that the speeds you’re reduced to are often less than 1 Mbps; so basically a trickle:

There are also usually restrictions on video resolution and tethering downloads for a lot of these companies. So yeah, it’s kind of unlimited? But also not really purely “unlimited?” Same old industry tactics. As an aside, when they say “no hidden fees,” there are almost always hidden fees.

Verizon apparently filed a complaint about Charter’s marketing with the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau, sort of an industry-self regulation apparatus designed to pre-emptively justify our feckless regulators not doing their jobs. And unsurprisingly, NAD ruled in favor of Charter, claiming that technically because your line still technically functions after hitting limits, it’s still “unlimited”:

“The National Advertising Division (NAD) concluded that the advertising conveys the message that Spectrum Mobile customers who subscribe to an Unlimited or Unlimited Plus plan will be able to consistently engage in typical online activities, regardless of the amount of data consumed in any given month.”

Even if NAD had found Charter lied, it’s a feckless pseudo-regulatory apparatus that results in no actual meaningful penalty. So the misleading marketing efforts surrounding “unlimited” data survive another day to confuse and mislead everyone.

Filed Under: caps, cellular, data, mobile, spectrum, throttling, unlimited, wireless
Companies: better business bureau, charter communications, verizon

Americans Consumed 100 Trillion Megabytes Of Wireless Data Last Year (And Paid Too Much For It)

Wireless

from the pay-a-lot,-get-a-little dept

The wireless industry’s major trade association (CTIA) just released a new study indicating that Americans consumed more than 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data last year. CTIA’s 2024 Annual Wireless Industry Survey found last year saw the biggest single-year increase in wireless data usage ever recorded: 36% more data consumed than in 2022 — and almost double the volume of data used in 2021.

The survey also found that nearly 40% of all wireless devices had a 5G connection in 2023, a 34% increase over 2022. There’s now 558 million wireless connections in the U.S. alone, more than 1.6 cellular connections for every American (usually a phone, tablet, or watch). The industry trade and lobbying organization, as it tends to do, took a moment to give itself a hearty pat on the back:

“This year’s milestone is a testament to the wireless industry’s commitment to our customers, our country, and our track record of driving our economy forward. To continue to support this demand and make sure America continues to lead the world in wireless innovation, the wireless industry needs Congress to restore the FCC’s auction authority and create a pipeline of much-needed mid-band spectrum.”

As with most superficial analysis of the wireless industry, the CTIA forgets to mention a small issue: the cost of service. Studies routinely illustrate that due to consolidation and regulatory capture Americans (and Canadians) continue to pay some of the highest rates for mobile data in the developed world.

And that happens, generally, because the steady drumbeat of mindless consolidation — combined with generally feckless U.S. regulatory oversight — tends to mute any incentive to compete on price. Studies have shown that what little price competition the U.S. experienced due to T-Mobile’s ascent as a disruptive player was immediately put to an end by the Sprint T-Mobile merger.

All of the things deal critics warned about before the deal (layoffs, less competition, less innovation) were promptly ignored by captured regulators and quickly came true. The shift from four to three major players, as it does in every country where regulators allow it, not only put an end to most price competition, but it put an end to the kind of consumer-friendly perks T-Mobile was once known for (T-Mobile has since moved on to acquire U.S. Cellular).

And while 5G did result in better, faster, and more reliable networks (and useful home 5G service in areas without fiber), the CTIA also forgot to mention that, despite Americans paying a steep premium, U.S. 5G networks tend to be much slower — and more inconsistently available — than their overseas counterparts.

Most surveys of wireless users indicate that what American cellular customers want more than anything is a price cut. But when U.S. telecom policy generally centers on rewarding mindless consolidation and steadily defanging (see: recent Supreme Court rulings) meaningful corporate oversight and consumer protection, that’s simply not happening anytime soon.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, cellular, consumers, data, high speed internet, mobile, prices, wireless
Companies: ctia

Report: Real World 5G Signal Availability Is Pathetic At AT&T (12%) And Verizon (7.7%)

Wireless

from the great-job-everybody dept

Fifth-generation wireless (5G) was supposed to change the world. According to wireless carriers and gear makers, not only was it supposed to bring about the “fourth industrial revolution,” it was supposed to usher forth amazing new smart cities and help with cancer treatment. Wireless giants routinely portrayed a world full of 5G powered robots giving tattoos or engaging in remote bananna surgery (?).

In the real world, 5G landed with a dud. While it does offer faster and lower latency connections, it was always more of a modest evolution than a revolution. And U.S. telecom being what it is (highly consolidated, barely competitive, poorly and inconsistently regulated), most U.S. 5G service wound up being slower and significantly more expensive than most other developed nations.

A new report on U.S. wireless network performance by OpenSignal once again drives the inferiority of U.S. 5G home. The research firm created a metric dubbed the “5G availability score” — or the percentage of time customers actually have a 5G network connection “in the places they most commonly frequent.” The results are… particularly bad for two of the U.S.’ biggest wireless providers:

“On “5G availability,” T-Mobile resembles an Usain Bolt alongside the decrepit fun runners of AT&T and Verizon, scoring 67.9%. AT&T limps over the line below 12%, while Verizon collapses on it at 7.7%.”

Analysts note that the problem is particularly bad for U.S. 5G signal strength indoors. And it’s particularly bad indoors for Verizon and AT&T due to their heavy reliance on C-band spectrum (3.7 GHz), which lacks the range, speed, and wall penetration of other spectrum assets. It’s something that can be fixed in time, but not without both companies (read: consumers) spending significantly more money.

Meanwhile, something that Wall Street analysts and wireless research firms couldn’t care any less about is consumer costs. The consolidation of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger may have given T-Mobile a treasure trove of spectrum assets, but other studies have found the elimination of a fourth competitor ultimately caused the U.S. wireless industry to immediately stop competing on price.

And while T-Mobile may be faring better on 5G availability, other signs of deterioration thanks to consolidation have been evident. This is a company that has been hacked eight times in the last five years. And despite building a reputation for being different from industry giants AT&T and Verizon, they’ve increasingly been caught nickel and diming their userbase at an accelerating rate.

It’s not all gloom: 4G networks do generally perform well. And 5G in many areas has resulted in a big boom in fixed 5G home broadband access, which, while not as reliable as fiber, is a big improvement for those stuck on traditional broadband. But again, the quality and pricing of these connections are heavily dependent on healthy market competition, which the U.S. now has less of after the Sprint T-Mobile union.

Again, this conversation about competition and the perils of consolidation is simply not something most analysts, wireless research firms, and public policy officials care about in the slightest. In large part because the act of dismantling regulatory oversight and competition through mindless consolidation results in the only benefit that matters to the industry: stock valuations.

Thanks to consolidation, U.S. consumers not only pay more for mobile data than most developed nations, but the quality of the long-hyped 5G connections is inferior to many overseas deployments. We ultimately lost the once-heralded “race to 5G” thanks to mindless deregulation and consolidation, resulting in a clumsy waddle toward mediocrity the industry doesn’t much like to talk about.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, competition, consolidation, high speed internet, mobile, telecom, wireless

FCC Eyes Making Carriers Unlock All Phones Within 60 Days Of Purchase

Wireless

from the freedom dept

For decades there has been endless policy wrangling over whether “unlocking your phone” (removing restrictions allowing you to take the device with you to another carrier) should be allowed. Giant carriers have generally supported onerous phone locks because it hampers competition by making it harder to switch providers. Consumer rights groups and the public broadly support unlocked devices.

Now the FCC is proposing a new rule that would require wireless providers unlock customers’ mobile phones within 60 days of activation, giving them the freedom to switch providers so long as their phone supports the mobile network they’re switching to. FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel had this to say of the proposed changes:

“Real competition benefits from transparency and consistency,” said Chairwoman
Rosenworcel. “That is why we are proposing clear, nationwide mobile phone unlocking rules.
When you buy a phone, you should have the freedom to decide when to change service to the carrier you want and not have the device you own stuck by practices that prevent you from making that choice.”

At various times unlocking your phone was deemed downright illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Things have eased some over the years; very often it’s now possible to unlock your device and change carriers if your phone is paid off and you’re no longer under contract. The FCC is contemplating a rule that would force unlocking even for those under contract.

While competition-phobic telecoms have ceded some ground on this space, they still enjoy creating as much friction as possible when it comes to changing providers, hoping to mute competition’s impact. After the Sprint T-Mobile merger U.S. price competition effectively halted; I imagine they’d be thrilled if they could revert to an era where switching providers was as monumental of a hassle as possible.

The FCC is only proposing a new rule and hasn’t provided details yet. That happens on July 18, at which point the public will have an opportunity to comment. Carriers will inevitably sue to prevent any possible reform on this front; and with the recent 6-3 Supreme Court Chevron ruling, corporate lawyers have more tools in their arsenal than ever to mire efforts just like this one in perpetual legal muck.

Filed Under: broadband, fcc, phones, smartphone, tablet, telecom, unlocked, wireless

Having Learned Nothing From The 5G Hype Cycle, The 6G Hype Cycle Begins In Earnest

Wireless

from the this-one-goes-to-11 dept

Fifth-generation wireless (5G) was supposed to change the world. According to wireless carriers and gear makers, not only was it supposed to bring about the “fourth industrial revolution,” it was supposed to usher forth amazing new smart cities and help with cancer treatment. Wireless giants routinely portrayed a world full of 5G powered robots giving tattoos or engaging in remote bananna surgery (?).

In the real world, 5G landed with a dud. While it does offer faster and lower latency connections, it was always more of a modest evolution than a revolution. And U.S. telecom being what it is (highly consolidated, barely competitive, poorly and inconsistently regulated), most U.S. 5G service wound up being slower and significantly more expensive than most European variants.

Now the wireless industry is starting to develop the 6G standard. 6G, like 5G before it, should improve network performance and speed, integrating some interesting network automation technologies while pushing into lesser used segment of spectrum. It will be less about developing new hardware transmission technologies, and more about interoperation and integrating new automation tech.

It hasn’t been clear that the wireless sector learned absolutely anything to the backlash to 5G hype. Ericsson, for example, has proclaimed 6G will create an “Internet of the senses” allowing consumers to “digitally transport themselves” all over the world. Samsung insists 6G will create “hyper connected AI experiences,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

With 5G investment pretty much crashing, you can tell that at least some people in the wireless sector have toned the bullshit down a little bit, with even AT&T executives mirroring my language about these standards being evolutionary, not revolutionary. Still, it’s pretty common to see wireless executives claiming that 6G will deliver things like “indoor service robots” and “extended reality experiences”:

“Young said 6G might support a variety of new applications and services, including indoor service robots, extended reality experiences, and digital twins for hazardous environments.”

Corporate speak is inherently meaningless, but there’s something about these untethered predictions that are always particularly amusing. Not just because these inventions often aren’t real; but because they don’t need 6G to exist in the first place. Most of the innovative use cases portrayed by industry in 5G and 6G would function equally well over a gigabit Wi-Fi connection.

Cancer treatments in hospitals probably aren’t going to even use cellular. There’s no reason a remote tattoo artist can’t use an ordinary Ethernet port. There’s an amusing facts-optional hand wavy desperation in the rhetoric I always find highly entertaining.

Here in reality, over-hyping comes with a cost. By over-promising on what this kind of tech is capable of, they wind up associating the terminology in the minds of consumers not with innovation and utility, but with mindless hype.

Another problem is that consumers don’t really want to spend more money for 5G. U.S. wireless data is already some of the most expensive in the developed world thanks to industry consolidation. Every single consumer survey reveals that the thing U.S. consumers want the most are lower prices.

Efforts to charge even more for 5G haven’t gone well. Verizon had to back off plans to charge $10 extra for 5G after nobody wanted to pay. AT&T’s currently trying to charge people $7 extra for “turbo 5G,” which I suspect will fare roughly the same.

Given U.S. wireless competitive, consolidation, and regulatory capture issues, the “race to 5G” was always more of a waddle to nowhere. It’s also a race we didn’t really win by any meaningful metric, with everybody from France to China offering broader 5G coverage for significantly less money. That’s not really something the dutifully patriotic U.S. tech press usually wants to discuss.

I’d like to hope that the 6G hype cycle isn’t quite as bad as the 5G hype cycle. But most of the financial incentives lean toward over-stating the technologies capabilities in press and policy. More reliable, faster networks aren’t sexy and don’t grab headlines. So I suspect “AI” hype and 6G hype will fuse and morph in entirely new ways that, at the very least, will be amusing in their absurdity.

Filed Under: 5g, 6g, ai, hype, robots, wireless

AT&T Tries Charging Users $7 Extra For ‘Turbo’ 5G

Wireless

from the this-one-goes-to-11 dept

For years, big ISPs have made it abundantly clear that they dream of being able to abuse their gatekeeper power over telecom markets to tilt the playing field in their favor. Whether it was Verizon’s early attempts to force you to buy their GPS apps and mapping services, to AT&T’s later-year efforts with “sponsored data” (letting certain big companies buy a network advantage), their goals have never been subtle.

Unfortunately for them, consumer groups, activists, and regulators keep screwing up their plans with that whole “net neutrality” thing.

Last month, the FCC finally got around to restoring net neutrality rules, which prohibit ISPs from being too obviously obnoxious when it comes to anti-competitive behavior. The rules ban ISPs from blocking or throttling competitors, or from striking deals that could distort the competitive landscape (like say by giving Disney faster network performance and exemption from data caps, but not a nonprofit).

Since AT&T can’t engage in the kind of fully anti-competitive efforts they were hoping for, they’ve been relegated to trying to nickel-and-dime consumers in less spectacular ways. For example, last week the company announced they’d be offering the company’s 5G users “Turbo” speeds for an extra $7 a month.

The $7 surcharge, for each line on your account, “boosts all the high-speed and hotspot data on a user’s connection.” It does this by assigning “Quality of Service Class Identifiers,” which effectively gives some users network priority. The “boost” is only available on unlimited data plans, and even then AT&T will still throttle your connection down if you consume more than 75 GB of data.

Some business users who videoconference on the go might find some benefit from the guaranteed performance, but it’s unlikely many users (who already pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for wireless data) will be all that interested. Verizon tried charging users $10 extra a month just to connect at 5G speeds, but had to back off once it was clear that most users care more about affordability.

While AT&T’s initial offering doesn’t violate net neutrality, some consumer advocates say that the act of speeding up some customers could slow down others. And the pricing mostly just makes for a confusing user experience:

“Unlike speed tiers, or different data allowances, if a bunch of users effectively buy their way to the front of the line, that could end up degrading the experience for other users. Apart from that, it could just lead to a confusing billing experience, and users being upsold on a service they don’t need, and that may not end up being that useful.”

But generally there’s nothing wrong with giving people with extra disposable income an opportunity to set it on fire. We’ll have to see if AT&T, known for always pushing its luck when it comes to nickel-and-diming consumers in creative and obnoxious ways, expands or tweaks the offering in ways that could be viewed as anti-competitive.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, fcc, high speed internet, mobile, net neutrality, turbo, wireless, wireless data
Companies: at&t

Senator Wyden Reminds White House Feckless Regulators Have Resulted In Pathetic Security On U.S. Wireless Networks

Wireless

from the maybe-we-should-fix-this-multi-decade-problem dept

While countless lawmakers looking to get on cable TV spent much of the last few years freaking out about TikTok privacy issues, none of those same folks seem bothered by the parade of nasty vulnerabilities in the nation’s telecom networks.

Hackers are still happily exploiting the SS7 flaw that lets governments and bad actors spy on wireless users around the planet. There’s a constant drumbeat of location data scandals that keep revealing how your granular location data is being sold to any nitwit with a nickel. And then there’s the nonexistent privacy and security standards in the internet of broken things or satellite communications networks.

In a new letter sent to the White House, Senator Ron Wyden notes that the steady rush toward mindless deregulation of U.S. telecom has had a negative impact on overall security, particularly on U.S. wireless networks. That, in turn, has been exploited by a growing roster of hacking companies that sell largely untraceable phone hacking tools at ever increasing scale, notes Wyden:

“These phone company hacking services exploit flaws in two obscure technologies, known as
Diameter and Signaling System 7 (SS7). These two technologies are used by wireless carriers
around the world to deliver text messages between phone companies, and for roaming by their customers traveling abroad. For the last decade, cybersecurity researchers and investigative journalists have highlighted how wireless carriers’ failure to secure their networks against rogue SS7 and Diameter requests for customer data has been exploited by authoritarian governments to conduct surveillance.”

Wyden singles out the FCC’s consistent failure to set even minimum cybersecurity standards for
wireless carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The FCC has, as we’ve often noted, steadily had its authority, staff, and resources chipped away by industry to the point where the agency is often purely decorative, and routinely unwilling to stand up to telecom giants on any issue of note.

At the same time, Wyden notes that CISA is “actively hiding information about it from the American people,” making it tougher to even understand the scale of the problem. His office recommended that the FCC, CISA and NSA all work in concert to shore up U.S. security standards, using the UK Telecommunications Security Code of Practice as a model.

We probably won’t do any of that, because you get more attention and cable TV news appearances as an FCC official if you purposelessly hyperventilate about stuff like TikTok. Not only are many FCC officials not doing their basic jobs, they’re actively undermining the few things the FCC does attempt to accomplish (like formally recognizing racism in broadband deployment), all to the benefit of industry.

Filed Under: deregulation, diameter, fcc, hacking, privacy, regulators, ron wyden, ss7, wireless

The ‘Race to 5G’ Wound Up Being More Of A Hobbled Waddle To Nowhere

Overhype

from the holy-hype,-batman dept

We’ve noted for years how the “race to 5G” was largely just hype by telecoms and hardware vendors eager to sell more gear and justify high U.S. mobile data prices. While 5G does provide faster, more resilient, and lower latency networks, it’s more of a modest evolution than a revolution.

But that’s not what telecom giants like Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T promised. All three routinely promised that 5G would change the way we live and work, usher forth the smart cities of tomorrow, and even revolutionize the way we treat cancer. None of those things wound up being true.

In fact, when 5G did arrive in the U.S., speeds and performance wound up being significantly worse than in many overseas deployments. At prices far higher than in most developed countries.

As a result, many consumers wound up associating the standard not with progress, but with empty hype. And as The Verge notes in a new piece tracking 5G’s trajectory to date, investors are growing increasingly unhappy about the lack of returns on what was a major overall investment:

“And we don’t have to guess whether investors are asking questions about when they’ll see a return — they asked point blank in the company’s most recent earnings call. [Verizon] CEO Hans Vestberg fielded the question, balancing the phrases “having the right offers for our customers” and “generating the bottom line for ourselves,” while nodding to “price adjustments” that also “included new value” for customers. It was a show of verbal gymnastics that meant precisely nothing.”

There’s one area where 5G did wind up being a benefit: fixed wireless access (FWA). For folks stuck without any access, or stuck on a DSL line straight out of 2003, a home 5G FWA line is a notable improvement. It’s still not something that’s going to be as fast and reliable as fiber (or even cable), but 5G has proven to be useful when it comes to shoring up overall home broadband coverage gaps.

But unchecked and often pointless industry consolidation continues to reduce any incentive to seriously compete on price over the longer term. And as investor demand for recouped investment grows, the outcome will most assuredly be more nickel-and-diming of wireless customers. Customers on good FWA deals now will, as is wireless industry tradition, steadily see costs head skyward over time.

Meanwhile in China (the country held up as the standard we were supposedly chasing in the “race to 5G”) consumers see much, much cheaper prices for 5G connections — but also still resent being shoveled over to 5G due to the technology’s high battery drain and spotty coverage in rural markets.

All told, U.S. 5G is a far cry from the “fourth industrial revolution” telecoms and gear vendors tried desperately to present it as, and all most consumers really wanted was a reliable, more affordable connection.

Filed Under: 4g, 5g, bandwidth, broadband, competition, hype, race to 5g, telecom

Dish Network, The Trump Era ‘Fix’ For The Sprint T-Mobile Merger, Looks Increasingly Doomed

Failures

from the who-could-have-predicted-it,-beyond-everyone? dept

Aging satellite TV provider Dish Network is supposed to be undergoing a major transformation from tired old satellite TV provider to streaming and wireless juggernaut, but it’s… not going well.

The company’s latest earnings report indicates it lost another 284,000 video subscribers during the quarter. That includes a loss of 197,000 satellite TV customers, as well as a loss of 97,000 streaming (Sling TV) subscribers. At the same time, the company’s attempted pivot to wireless has resulted in Dish losing 250,000 wireless subscribers in just one quarter.

Normally a boring company failing isn’t of particular note.

But you might recall that Dish’s attempted pivot into 5G wireless was the flimsy justification Trump regulators used to justify approving the competition-eroding Sprint and T-Mobile merger. We didn’t need to worry about the competition-eroding or employment harms of the deal, we were told, because Dish would use its massive spectrum holdings to create a major new wireless competitor.

Those efforts similarly aren’t going well, with a commercial 5G network that seems laughably undercooked with limited coverage and device selection. Despite a low chance of success and massive costs to expand a 5G network nobody seems to want to actually use, Dish keeps spinning rosy yarns to investors and regulators, though in a research note sector analyst Craig Moffett say things aren’t looking good:

“Dish has no money. They have more spectrum than they know what to do with. Among their
many problems – their Boost pre-paid business is floundering; their Boost post-paid launch is
stillborn; their satellite TV business is in free fall; their streaming video service is imploding;
free cash flow is already negative and is falling fast.”

Dish announced in August that it would be merging with Echostar in a transparent bid to keep things afloat for a bit longer and distract folks from the company’s ugly summer hacker intrusion, but bankruptcy seems increasingly inevitable. Even the normally bubbly, industry-friendly trade magazines that have lent credibility to Dish’s gambit to date seem to be changing their tune.

It always seemed obvious that Dish’s push into wireless and streaming was a desperate Hail Mary that would involve stringing regulators along with the promise of 5G competition, before the company inevitably cashes out its spectrum, pays whatever pathetic fine the FCC can concoct for missing merger-related 5G build obligations, and CEO Charlie Ergen rides into retirement atop a giant pile of money.

Whatever’s left of Dish’s sad 5G network gets hoovered up by one of the remaining industry players (Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile), and the never ending quest for mindless consolidation continues, with absolutely nobody in the chain facing even a hint of accountability or introspection.

Filed Under: antitrust, boost, competition, fcc, mergers, mobile provider, spectrum
Companies: dish network, t-mobile