Dish Network said Wednesday that its prepaid wireless unit Boost Mobile has agreed to purchase Gen Mobile, a provider of wireless data and cell phone service to low-income customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed,  but in a press release Dish said it will purchase the Gen Mobile brand, customer base, existing distribution network, technology and wireless team.

"Gen Mobile has an established brand, a proven team and an unwavering commitment to connect the underserved," said Boost Mobile EVP Stephen Stokols in a press release. "The brand is a natural addition as we look to reach all segments of the mobile market."

This is the third acquisition for Boost in about a year. In March, the company purchased Republic Wireless,  a prepaid MVNO with about 200,000 subscribers. In August 2020 Dish agreed to purchase Ting Mobile,  another prepaid wireless company that operates via an MVNO agreement with T-Mobile that had about 200,000 customers at the time that deal was struck. In July, after signing an MVNO deal with AT&T, Dish said traffic from its Boost, Ting and Republic customers would be moved to the AT&T network.

Dish entered the prepaid wireless business after it purchased Boost Mobile from T-Mobile for $1.4 billion in 2020, as part of the larger wireless company’s $26 billion purchase of Sprint. Dish also agreed to buy spectrum from T-Mobile worth about $3.6 billion. 

While Boost had more than 9 million prepaid wireless customers at the time of its Dish deal, that base has been dwindling. In Q2,, Dish said it had about 8.89 million prepaid wireless customers, but lost about 362,000 prepaid customers in the six months prior to June 30.

Dish is also in the throes of building out its own 5G wireless network, and plans to launch its first market, Las Vegas, in Q4. 

Dish said the Gen Mobile deal will better help Boost address the digital divide. Earlier this year, Boost said it will participate in the federal Emergency Broadband Benefit program, which is geared toward making broadband more affordable for all Americans. Gen Mobile offers wireless broadband service for as little as $10 per month, and its focus on underrepresented communities will help Dish achieve its stated goals of accelerating its EBB and Lifeline growth. 

"We founded Gen Mobile to help bridge the digital divide and ensure all Americans have basic affordable wireless access," Gen Mobile CEO and co-founder Robert Yap said in a press release.  "Joining forces with Boost allows us to broaden our customer reach, magnify our impact and ultimately connect more Americans."

Yap will continue to lead the Gen Mobile business, reporting to Stokols. Gen Mobile will continue to be headquartered in Los Angeles. 

Dish Network said it will purchase Republic Wireless, a mobile operator with about 200,000 customer relationships, for an undisclosed sum.  

Republic Wireless provides service via a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with T-Mobile. Dish, which is in the process of building its own 5G wireless network, has agreed to buy spectrum from T-Mobile and also operates a prepaid wireless business (Boost Mobile)  which uses T-Mobile’s network. 

Also Read: Dish: No Partner Needed for Wireless Dance 

This is the second small wireless acquisition Dish has made since agreeing to buy about $3.6 billion in wireless spectrum from T-Mobile over three years (and the Boost Mobile business for another $1.4 billion) in 2019  as part of the larger company’s purchase of Sprint. In August, Dish agreed to purchase prepaid phone company Ting Mobile.  As part of the Republic deal, Dish said  SVP of Ting Mobile and MVNO platform Rob Currie, will lead the Republic Wireless business.

"Republic has created a loyal following and established a brand known for innovation, customer service and value. We plan to build upon that strong foundation," said Dish chief operating officer and president of its Retail Wireless unit John Swieringa, in a press release. "As we continue to grow our retail wireless business, Republic broadens our existing customer base and positions us to deliver even more value to the market, expanding our portfolio of mobile solutions to meet a variety of customer needs. We look forward to welcoming Republic customers to the Dish family."

After the deal closes, expected in the second quarter of this year, Republic’s Relay division, which provides communications service to hospitality, healthcare, facilities management, manufacturing and education clients, will continue to operate as a standalone  company. Relay will also become a wholesale customer on Dish’s 5G network. 

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has added some populist pop to his Federal Communications Commission “landing” team as he prepares to remake the agency come Inauguration Day (Jan. 20).

Trump will get to pick a new chairman, and, if he chooses one of the agency’s two current Republicans for that post, one new GOP and one Democratic commissioner as well.

The newest, fourth member of the FCC transition team is David Morken, the co-founder and CEO of Republic Wireless parent company Bandwidth.com. Last month, Roslyn Layton, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joined fellow conservative think tank alumni Jeff Eisenach and Mark Jamison on the team providing input on new FCC leadership.

Bandwidth.com built its wireless business on the theory that WiFi could serve as the primary network and a cellular network, specifically Sprint’s, as backup, which would allow it to charge less — $19 per month with no contract.

Morken combines several life experiences that appear to hold a lot of weight with the incoming president and could apply to the tenor of the new commission. He is a former member of the U.S. military (a Marine) and an entrepreneur/disruptor who built an “overnight success” through a decade of hard work growing a business.

Morken clearly has a populist streak, or at least a consumer-empowering marketing approach to challenging the big carriers.

“The cellular emperor has no clothes — smart consumers have been clamoring for someone to unlock the value of our home and office networks for years,” he said when launching the hybrid WiFi/cellular approach in 2011.

The Trump transition team has not responded to requests for information on when the President-elect will chose a new chairman, though one of the sitting Republican commissioners — either Ajit Pai or Michael O’Rielly — will almost certainly preside at least as interim chair following the inauguration.

The FCC last week moved the public meeting to Jan. 31 to give Republicans more time to plan for it.

Google announced Wednesday that it will try to shake up the U.S. mobile industry with Project Fi, a service that starts at $20 per month and will run on pre-vetted WiFi hot spots as well as Sprint’s and T-Mobile US’s 4G LTE cellular networks. 

Taking aim at mobile services encumbered with restrictive or complicated data plans, Google said the $20 per month fee will cover basics such as talk, text, WiFi tethering and international coverage in more than 120 countries, plus a flat $10 per gigabyte for cellular data in the U.S. and abroad, or 2GB for $20, 3GB for $30 per month, and so on. Customers will also get money back each month for data they don't use. 

“Since it's hard to predict your data usage, you'll get credit for the full value of your unused data,” Nick Fox, VP of communications products at Google, explained in this blog post about the new service. “Let's say you go with 3GB for $30 and only use 1.4GB one month. You'll get $16 back, so you only pay for what you use.”

In the vein of so-called “WiFi first” strategies that are being pursued by some cable operators as well as providers such as Scratch Wireless and Republic Wireless (Cablevision Systems has launched a WiFi-only service called Freewheel), Google said Project Fi will securely auto-connect customers to open WiFi hotspots (Google said it has verified more than 1 million of them "as fast and reliable") or a partner's cellular network. Taking it a step further, Project Fi aims to connect customers to the fastest available network at a given location, whether that’s via WiFi or the Sprint or T-Mobile 4G network.

Google currently is limiting Project Fi to an invitation-only Early Access Program, and will initially offer the service on the Nexus 6, a Motorola-made device that is the first to support the service’s new WiFi/cellular handoff capabilities. 

Cablevision stock was relatively quiet on Monday despite its Freewheel WiFi-only product launch, an offering that one top analyst said could be a test bed for a more compelling WiFi-first phone in the future.

Cablevision shares finished Jan. 26 up 3 cents per share (0.15%) to $19.72 each, after being down slightly earlier Monday, the day it officially launched Freewheel, its WiFi-only product that offers unlimited data, text and voice for $29.95 per month. Existing Cablevision wireline broadband customers can receive the service for an extra $9.95 per month.

While Cablevision envisions the product – which will be available early next month – as the answer for cost-conscious consumers, college students and home and office workers with access to WiFi networks, the service does have some drawbacks, the biggest being its tendency to cut out once the user leaves a hotspot area.

Analysts have predicted that operators would use a hybrid WiFi/cellular product (so-called WiFi-first phones) to take advantage of their robust networks, and though Cablevision said it didn’t think it needed cellular back-up given the usage patterns of most young consumers, at least one analyst believes Freewheel could be a test-bed for a more complicated product.

In a note to clients Monday, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote he didn’t expect Freewheel to be “financially material for either Cablevision or the wireless industry.  The concept, however, is a very big deal.”

Other companies have tried the WiFi-only route with little success, Moffett wrote. He added that Republic Wireless already offers a WiFi only product or $5 per month, using the same Moto G phone Freewheel does, but demand has been lukewarm. And last week, mobile phone company FreedomPop launched a new Wi-Fi-only plan which includes unlimited voice, text and data on nearly 10 million hotspots nationwide for only $5 per month.

“But there is something much bigger afoot here,” Moffett wrote. “Cablevision’s real game is almost certainly to use the new Freewheel service as a beta test for what will eventually be a WiFi-first, rather than WiFi-only, service.  That’s the game changer we’ve been writing about for the past four years.”

WiFi-first, particularly when deployed by a cable operator with a much larger footprint than Cablevision’s 3-million subscriber New York metro area (like Comcast) could attract a lot of customers if priced and marketed aggressively, Moffett wrote.

“Coming on the heels of Google’s entry into the wireless business, and today’s disclosure that Google will indeed have least-cost dynamic routing that will play off WiFi, Sprint, and T-Mobile on a call-by-call and/or session-by-session basis (this had been the industry’s big fear when Google’s service was announced last week), Cablevision’s Freewheel is one more straw in the wind,” Moffett wrote. “The wireless business is in a tough spot.”

The Freewheel name also is similar to that of advertising technology company FreeWheel, which Comcast purchased last year. But sources familiar with both parties said Comcast and Cablevision have been working amicably toward an agreement that will allow both companies to thrive. Those sources added that because the two companies have different businesses -- just like Delta faucets and Delta Airlines -- there should be no problem in reaching a compromise.