Doubts over Dish's strength as a fourth wireless player

Dish has been a potential wireless entrant for some time, having scooped up a significant amount of spectrum in recent years — spectrum it is under pressure to use soon or risk losing. And, back in 2013, Dish lost out in a bidding war with SoftBank for control of Sprint. But if a combined T-Mobile/Sprint sells wireless assets to Dish, many experts doubt that Dish alone will be a significant rival to AT&T, Verizon and the new T-Mobile. It's not so much a question of "Can Dish compete?" but rather whether it has the stomach to do so, says New Street Research. If Dish builds a low-cost network, the firm argues, such a network can probably get customers. But whether Dish has the interest or skill to really build a network is far from certain. Even if Dish does build a network, wireless consultant Chetan Sharma predicted that it won't want to be in the business for the long haul. Instead, Dish would look to run it for a few years and ideally sell it back to one of the big three operators.