Last month, Dish Network signed a $5 billion agreement that will bring on AT&T as its new MVNO partner. And it looks like the cable company will be implementing the change pretty soon.
According to this report, Boost Mobile will soon start activating new customers under AT&T’s network in October. The report also shared that it’s possible that Boost will start transitioning its T-Mobile-based customers over to the new network by November. Dish hopes to complete this by January 2022.
It’s no surprise why the agreement with AT&T was signed in the first place. After all, there has been an ongoing public dispute between Dish and T-Mobile. By signing the agreement with AT&T, Dish will be able to provide continuous service to the 4 million Boost customers who will be affected by the Sprint CDMA network shutdown.
The latest on the dispute shows that T-Mobile has been issued a ruling “to show cause why it should not be sanctioned by the commission for violating” a rule by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) with “false, misleading, or omitted statements.” The ruling was issued on Friday after Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer and CPUC commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen found that T-Mobile lied to government regulators about its 3G shutdown plans as a way of getting its proposed Sprint merger approved.
They both found that there is “a reasonable basis to conclude that T-Mobile… misrepresented material facts and misled the commission.” When the CPUC approved the merger to happen, it “relied on the specific false statements, omissions, and/or misleading assurances T-Mobile gave regarding its use of [Sprint’s] PCS spectrum and its repeated references to a three-year customer migration period without a degraded experience… it appears that these false statements, omissions and/or misleading assurances and the related time references were intended to induce the commission to approve the merger.”
Dish argued that T-Mo broke its statements under oath that they will make their CDMA network “available to Boost customers until they were migrated to Dish Network Corporation’s LTE or 5G services.” They also broke their promise to give Dish up to three years to complete the migration.
T-Mobile is ordered to appear via video conference at a hearing on September 20th. If found guilty, T-Mobile could face a fine of up to $100,000 for each offense.
