Charlie Ergen
Co-founder and Chairman of the Board at DISH Network
Yes, this is Charlie. I'll try to take some of those and maybe somebody else would want to jump in. In terms of transition from AT&T, I mean obviously, AT&T will be our primary partner from a MVNO perspective going forward. But that doesn't mean that we're transitioning our customers off of T-Mobile. They again remain an important part of what we're doing to the extent that they want to be an important part of what we're doing. So one of the things that we'll do that relate to Las Vegas is obviously we have to be able to provision on AT&T, so that's going to take us a bit of time that we hope and maybe somebody else on this call or maybe one of our guys can talk about that and obviously the -- some customers will want to move to AT&T because of better network. Some people like the T-Mobile network will be better and they will stay where they are. And then for new customers, big picture, kind of thing is, our customers today and for the most part I think most customers across the United States that we talk to, they really want consistency and coverage as their priority and the speeds on 4G and LTE are normally fast enough for them, and they don't really see a difference in 5G when 5G pops up on their phones, so their little confused, nobody can charge more for 5G in the United States today. And so obviously for a new set of customers for us, we think the AT&T as a tremendous coverage advantage that we don't have today although T-Mobile is going to be a fast follower there as they build out rural America for their FCC milestones.
The other part of it is, that the T-Mobile today, probably arguably has an advantage that's certainly in perception of 5G and probably in 5G build out on their 600-megahertz. And while it doesn't really show up, there is a particular feature on the customers' can point to, it's still from a marketing perspective I think they are considered the leader in 5G and that's where 5G is important for our customers, that's going to be important. The key is going to be the 5G development both our own development, which we think we're doing a little bit differently, but also, as you get the, the big 100-megahertz blocks in C-band or 2.5, the T-Mobile is building out, that's going to be a real race for those guys and we'll see who does the best job of building something that can differentiate 5G to consumer, that will be the key. But we're well positioned with both T-Mobile and AT&T depending on who kind of wins that race, plus what we think that we're going to do different within 5G and our architecture that might be different than either one of those two. So we're just well-positioned to get the customer the network that they think is the best coverage and quality and value for them. But AT&T is going to get the -- be the primary, going forward.
The -- with AT&T in terms of -- Stephen touched on it, but there is other things beyond, I think it's probably moderately positive for both companies, but it could be extremely positive, you mentioned one spectrum we have. We have spectrum, both have mirror images of 700 megahertz or might be some interesting things you could do there and save some -- and get scale and save cost if companies are so inclined. We share an interest in the 12-gigahertz spectrum. We have some spectrum that as we build out we'll lay fallow for a bit until we build it out, and it probably could be put to use sooner rather than later by AT&T. So I think there is a -- there is technology of where things are going that our teams have committed to working together on and we were buying other services from AT&T like Backhaul, that we have to buy from somebody and since they are our partner now they get the benefit of the doubt on lot of those deals. So -- and we're both in the video business, and we have common interests there. So you can see this could -- this potentially could be a much better deals than the $5 billion that we're committed to. It may not, the companies may not get along, but I think both parties realize that there are things that we can share that are beneficial to both companies and when we can do that, we will, -- I'm sure we'll remain friend [Indecipherable], we obviously will compete with each other as well.
And then as far as, I forgot the question about Las Vegas.