Dish Network has recruited Samsung to help make its cloud-based 5G a reality. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Dish Network owes us a 5G network — that was the linchpin of the deal that allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint, bringing our wireless carrier options down to three. With Dish’s first deadline fast approaching, the company has announced a new partner: Samsung. The company joins Dish as a vendor while it attempts to build a 5G network from scratch.
Dish isn’t building just any old 5G network, either. It’s basing the network on a newer, cloud-based technology called O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) that relies on off-the-shelf (rather than proprietary) hardware. Samsung is supplying vRAN (Virtualized Radio Acc… you get it) software and radio units to help make the whole thing work.
Dish promised the FCC it would cover 20 percent of the…
