Dish’s Boost Wireless Expands, Now Covers 140 Million People

Dish’s Boost Mobile wireless network now covers 89 markets, with a footprint of 140 million people. The company recently added 12 new markets: Billings, MT; Cincinnati, OH; Columbia, SC; Denver, CO; Philadelphia, PA, Fayetteville, NC; Jacksonville, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Portland, OR; Shreveport, LA, Tucson, AZ; and Washington, DC. Dish bought the Boost Mobile business, which at the time was prepaid only, from T-Mobile as a condition of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint. The deal closed in 2020. Dish owns spectrum and is moving traffic onto that network as it is built. The company also has agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile to use their networks to support the service where Dish’s own network is not available. When Dish acquired the Boost Mobile business, the company committed to cover 70 percent of the U.S. population with 5G by 2023. In June 2023, Dish said that it had met that threshold.