Dish continues to buy American with Dell OpenRAN edge deal

Having sold much of its soul to AWS, nascent US MNO Dish once more opted for local help when in building its OpenRAN 5G edge network.

Dell will provide the ‘foundation’ of the network, which seems to mean the IT kit. Not only is Dell a major player in the server game, it will also provide containerized RAN functions and the support needed to execute such a cutting edge deployment. The two companies have also vowed to collaborate on further network R&D.

“By collaborating with Dell Technologies we will have the hardware and software infrastructure needed to harness the power and potential of 5G,” said Marc Rouanne, Chief Network Officer at Dish. “Dell’s open ecosystem approach will help us scale our RAN network with agility, speed and consistency, bringing about new business opportunities for both enterprise customers and consumers, completing our cloud strategy.

“We chose to leverage Dell’s technology because they have a demonstrated track record of transforming networks and a willingness to work with us on designing and implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC). With their help, we’re another step closer to deploying the United States’ first cloud-native, Open RAN 5G network.”

“Dish is breaking new ground by building a cloud-native 5G network designed for a future where edge computing and new 5G use cases collide in ways we haven’t thought of yet,” said Dennis Hoffman, GM of Dell’s Telecom Systems Business. “We will put our decades of digital transformation experience to work to help simplify and automate the rapid deployment of Dish’s 5G RAN and edge network.”

While we don’t question Dell’s ability to do the job, it’s probably not a coincidence that Dish has once more decided to buy American as part of its greenfield network build. The growing hostility by the US and its allies towards anything made in China is manifesting itself in a desire to be as domestically self-sufficient as possible, especially with critical infrastructure. Dish will have been aware of this in making its decisions and will presumably reap the political rewards for its continued patriotism.