FCC tasks Dish with building 70 percent of its AWS-4 LTE network in 7 years

The fellas at the FCC may have given Dish Network the green light to pilfer the AWS-4 spectrum for its upcoming LTE plans, but it didn't do so without leaving a few lingering strings. Dish is expected to build out the proposed network at a rate of ten percent per year, and faces serious consequences if it misses the proposed goals. If the company fails to make a 40 percent rollout in four years, for instance, Dish will be expected to polish off the remaining 30 percent in just two years instead of three. The company has seven trips around the sun to claim the entirety of its proposed market, too -- the FCC says Dish's license to uncovered areas will automatically expire if it doesn't have 70 percent of the network ready within the alloted timeframe.

Competing networks are concerned that Dish may intentionally fall short of this goal, covering the most profitable markets at the expense of losing coverage in less lucrative, rural areas. The feds put out some guidelines on power limitations too, and the fate of the contested H band is still up in the air. Eager to sift though the federal declarations? Skip on over to the source links below and jump in -- it's only a cumulative 216 pages of legalese.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile

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Via: Electronista

Source: FCC (Scribd) [1], [2]