Samsung wins US 5G equipment order from Dish Network

Samsung Electronics Co. has been chosen to supply 5G network equipment to Dish Network Corp., a US wireless carrier in the middle of building a 5G network across the nation to cover 70% of the US population by 2023, Samsung said on Tuesday.

The contract value was not disclosed. But industry sources said it exceeded 1 trillion won ($790 million), about one-tenth the total cost of the 5G project estimated by Dish co-founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen.

The latest contract marked the second-largest 5G equipment order Samsung has secured from a US company since it clinched a 7.9 trillion won order from Verizon Communications Inc. in 2020.

Dish plans to use virtualization and software to power its 5G network, which its chairman called a real paradigm shift and would give it an advantage over other wireless providers still dependent on hardware-based systems.

As a vendor of Dish Network, Samsung will supply various telecommunications equipment, including those for a virtual radio access network (vRAN), to support the US company's cloud-based 5G network.

vRAN is the most advanced 5G technology so far by equipping network servers with various functions like installing software on the computer so that it can reduce installation time and costs.

At Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2022 in March of this year, Samsung was awarded CTO Choice for its fully-virtualized 5G RAN. 

To secure the order, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee tried to win the heart of Chairman Ergen, a mountain enthusiast.

When the Chairman was in Seoul last September to have a meeting with Samsung and to assess its 5G equipment capability, Lee called Ergen and suggested they take mountain hiking the following day.

Lee was tipped off that Ergen was such a veteran climber that he has climbed the world's tallest mountains: Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa.

The next morning, Lee himself drove his car to pick up the mountaineer from a downtown hotel and moved to Mt. Bukhan on the northern periphery of Seoul.
 
Instead of holding a one-hour business meeting in the office as scheduled, Lee had a six-hour chat with Ergen without attendants from 11:30 am on the mountain. 

During their hiking, Lee convinced Ergen of Samsung's technological capability and competitiveness for telecom equipment, according to people familiar with the matter.

Back in 2000, Lee also played an instrumental role in winning the 7.9 trillion won equipment order from Verizon, making full use of his relationships with Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg.