After beginning his new role at Ziff Davis, Bye will join Dish Network’s board of directors
Stephen Bye, the current chief commercial officer of Dish Network’s facilities-based wireless network business, is moving to Ziff Davis to serve as president of its Connectivity division—which includes network testing and analysis brands Ookla, Rootmetics and Ekahau. When Bye begins his new post on January 23, he will also join Dish Network’s board of directors.
Bye has an extensive wireless background. Prior to his work at Dish, which he began in 2019, he has served as CTO of Sprint and the CEO of Connectivity Wireless, as well as in senior positions at Cox Communications, AT&T, Optus Communications and Telstra.
“Stephen is a visionary in the telecommunications industry with three decades of experience across wireless, cable, and wireline providers,” commented Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis. “He’s ideally suited to lead our Connectivity business which is a premier provider of network and service intelligence, network design and optimization, and connectivity insights.”
While Ziff Davis is known mostly as a publisher of trade magazines, the company has been investing more into the wireless industry with several recent acquisitions, including the 2014 purchase of Ookla. From there, Ookla — now under ownership of Ziff Davis — acquired Finnish wireless design firm Ekahau in 2018 and then RootMetrics in 2021.
Dish’s 5G network stands out because it is a greenfield, nationwide 5G network architected using cloud-native and Open RAN principles. However, the company has faced numerous wireless delays. In 2020, the company said its 5G service would be available within the year, but later updated this deadline to Q1 2021. Ultimately, its first next-gen launch in Las Vegas didn’t happen until May 2022.
By mid-2022, Dish said it had reached the government’s deadline to cover 20% of the population with its 5G network, claiming expansion to more than 120 cities. Now, the company is required to up that coverage to 70% of the population by June.
