FCC Tips Motorola Phones With Special Dish, AT&T Bands

pcmag.com:

Dish has a plan to launch 5G in more than 100 US cities by June. Now it may have the first two phones that will support its whole network.

First spotted by Phone Scoop, two new Motorola phones just passed the FCC, and they're the first phones we've seen with 5G bands n26 and n70, two frequencies that will play into Dish's plans in 2022 and beyond. The two phones are tagged as models "XT2213" and "XT2215." On a Chinese forum, the XT2215-1 is shown as potentially being sold by AT&T's low-cost arm Cricket.

Dish uses a wild grab-bag of 5G frequencies: n26/29/48/66/70/71/77. Of those frequencies, 26 and 70 will be exclusive to Dish; 29 is also used by AT&T; 71 is also used by T-Mobile; and 48, 66, and 77 are used by multiple other carriers.

Band n70 was specifically designed for Dish, so that it could combine some odds and ends it owned into something useful. N26 is the old Nextel spectrum, which Dish agreed to purchase as part of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. However, Dish has not technically gone through with the purchase yet.

These are the first phones we've seen with either 5G bands n70 or n26; neither are present even in the Samsung Galaxy S22 series. The phones are capable of making voice calls purely over 5G networks, another Dish mobile requirement. Dish is not installing any 4G equipment.

Dish currently has one phone designed for its network, the Celero 5G. While the current model of the Celero 5G doesn't support n26 or n70, Dish told us when it launched that future models will.

It may appear strange that Dish's system will first be supported by low-cost phones rather than by flagship devices, but Dish's current primary customer base comes from Boost Mobile, and they're generally prepaid, often low-cost phone owners.

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