Dish's wireless is not about consumer smartphones. 5G is not really about consumer smartphones--it represents a small use of the spectrum even for the big wireless companies. Dish's plan for its wireless is IoT. 5G for all wireless companies is about IoT. Dish's customers for its wireless services could be some consumers for 5G broadband along with institutional customers. The vast majority of users of the big wireless companies 5G will be corporate with consumers representing a minority of users.
Dish is going IoT for its spectrum, so it won't need a single brick and mortor store nor will it be selling phones. It could sell broadband internet access to consumers using 5G, but corporate clients will also find such a service attractive. The Big wireless companies are going heavily IoT for its 5G with a small portion for consumer phones. The spectrum can allow this, and the big money and growth is in IoT including driverless cars, wireless 5G broadband and a whole lot more not invoving smartphones nor individual consumers.
5G's attributes is what IoT has been waiting for such as automobiles (not just driverless capabilities, but auto makers pushing updates to its core, safety, information, and entrainment systems keeping them all up to date or even adding features, and, especially, patching security holes would be a tremendous advancement), virtual reality as it relates to self driving cars in in bad weather and fog (possibly aviation, as well) and medicine/health care, manufacturing and industry with far superior communication among machines. None of this is about smartphones. The businesses that can benifit from 5G are eager for 5G's enhancements and are willing to pay, especially Waymo, Lyft, Uber, and trucking companies because 5G makes driverless vehicles much safer. None of this requires brick and mortar stores for consumers.
So, anyone who still thinks 5G is about smartphones does not understand 5G technology nor do they understand who demands 5G's benifits and who is willing to pay a lot more than some smartphone user looking for the cheapest plan, nor do they understand the larger growth and higher profits from corporate and institutional customers 5G represents. Of course, 5G broadband could be a competitor to our current consumet broadband ISP's (cable cos.), especially delivering true broadband speeds in rural areas if the network is done right. 5G represents a big change in the world as we know it today, while smartphones won't be changing nearly as much.
