Leveraging Dell Technologies hardware, software and supply chain, DISH faced a “race against the clock.” And delivered
After nearly two decades of strategic spectrum acquisition followed by extensive partner ecosystem development effort, DISH Wireless began building a first-of-its-kind 5G Standalone network using Open RAN and cloud-native technological and organizational principles. As DISH was standing up a deployment machine to meet date-certain coverage requirements, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, disrupting virtually every aspect of commerce.
But DISH hit those milestones, achieving 20% population coverage in the U.S. in mid-2022 and then 70% population coverage in June 2023. And based on a conversation during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a big part of that success comes from a collaborative partnership with Dell Technologies, drawing on Dell’s hardware, software and supply chain expertise.
DISH Wireless SVP of Network Development Richard Leitao reflected on the impact of COVID-19 and the challenges “from a logistics/supply chain perspective…It was certainly a race against the clock.”
He continued: “Dell was critical for us. Dell was able to bring the capacity that we needed. We all had to adapt during COVID. O-RAN projects have an advantage because it can actually disaggregate the hardware from the software. You can purchase those at the same time, and on the hardware side, you can go component by component. So, from that point of view, there’s an advantage. But having partners like Dell that have a powerful supply chain organization that is able to have critical relationships…definitely was a game changer.
Watch the full interview between Leitao and Dell Technologies vice president and global client executive Girish Kadam here.
Picking up on Leitao’s comment on hardware/software disaggregation, the DISH Wireless network is essentially designed to create a highly-distributed cloud wherein the radio access network that connects customers back to the cloud is one of many potential features. Building and operationalizing this type of network required DISH to assemble a broad partner network, then serve as its own system integrator.
In an effort to effectively reaggregate disaggregated radio systems, Leitao recalled challenges on organizational alignment both internally and with its broad portfolio of suppliers. “That was probably the biggest challenge of all.”
In order to meet its coverage requirements, DISH worked with Dell to pre-assemble and stage radio kit. This involved a full process review meant to “get all the kits to the field at the most complete stage possible so that once you get to the field, you can actually do it fairly quickly…You reduce the number of problems from one side because you do those activities in a controlled environment and, from the other side, be able to save time when you are building the site on the field.”
With that 70% milestone achieved, and more to come, Leitao highlighted the importance of trust in the larger arc of multi-vendor Open RAN implementations. “Dell became a critical services provider,” he said, noting that DISH’s data centers were even built in partnership with Dell. “And we are looking forward to expanding our cooperation in other areas.”
