Boost Mobile says it’s a real wireless carrier now

Boost Mobile has announced it is on its way to meeting FCC coverage deadlines by the end of the year and says it has earned the title of MNO — Mobile Network Operator — rather than MVNO, which is a virtual network operator mainly reselling service from other carriers. Mission... accomplished? Sort of. It’s progress, at least.

Boost, you will remember, is supposed to be our nation’s fourth wireless carrier thanks to a wonky deal that allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint. Dish Network — now owned by EchoStar — bought the brand as part of the deal and is required by the FCC to hit certain milestones in its 5G network buildout to hold up its part of the bargain. Last June, it was required to cover 70 percent of the US population; by the end of the year, it needs to reach 80 percent. Boost’s chief technology officer, Eben Albertyn, told The Verge, “We are well on our way to meeting this goal.” He says the company has lit up more than 20,000 of the 24,000 cell sites it has promised to deploy by June 2025.

“Covering” 80 percent of the population is one thing; actually providing service to customers on that network is another. While Boost’s network has been under construction over the past few years it has mainly offered service through AT&T and T-Mobile as an MVNO.

Boost spokespeople weren’t able to tell me what percentage of customer traffic rides on Boost’s own network versus its roaming partners. However, the company’s director of communications, Meredith Diers, says it has migrated “over half a million customers onto our network and our core since the beginning of this year.” New customers in covered areas are also loaded directly on the network, provided they have a phone compatible with its network. Considering that just a couple of years ago, there was just one phone compatible with the network, that’s good progress.

The effort has certainly come a long way since the days of Project Gene5is, its early pilot program that weirdly had something to do with NFTs. But Boost’s subscriber numbers are still small; in its August earnings release the company said it had 7.28 million subscribers. T-Mobile counted 127 million customers in its most recent earnings release. Even if it meets those FCC milestones on time, there’s much more work to be done.