The hits just keep coming at Dish Network. Boost Mobile CEO Stephen Stokols will leave the company next month, and Dish will tap a Dish alumni, Michael Kelly, to head up retail.
Kelly, a former 15-year Dish executive, will join Dish on April 24 as EVP and group president of retail wireless. Kelly will be responsible for sales, marketing, go-to-market strategy and operations of Dish’s retail wireless brands.
“Mike is a visionary leader who has strong experience in the technology and telecom industries,” said Dish Network President and CEO Erik Carlson in a statement. “He has a growth mindset with a customer-centric approach. We look forward to having Mike on the team and helping to lead the way as we grow the retail wireless business and the Boost brand.”
Kelly joined Dish in 2000 through its acquisition of Kelly Broadcasting Systems, which he founded in 1991. He also served as president of Dish's Blockbuster unit for a time. He retired from Dish in 2015. According to his LinkedIn profile, he then went on to become CEO of IoT Broadband, a Denver-based technology and IoT company, and Alpha Bay, a retail payment solutions provider.
“There is tremendous opportunity for Dish to grow in the retail wireless space. I look forward to collaborating with our retailers, distributors and world-class team members as we evolve the business,” Kelly said in a statement. “We’re entering a new phase with Dish Wireless. We’ll leverage our O-RAN 5G network, our MVNO relationships, business partnerships, and DISH’s suite of products and capabilities to deliver innovative, differentiated services to the American public that will drive subscriber growth.”
Tough times
Stokols is leaving his post at Boost at a time when Dish has its hands full on multiple fronts. Boost Mobile has been losing subscribers – about 1 million since Dish acquired the brand through the Sprint/T-Mobile merger – and it repeatedly delayed the rollout of the Boost Infinite postpaid brand. Dish is also building a 5G network based on an open RAN architecture, and succeeding in building a greenfield network in wireless is just plain tough.
Stokols joined Dish in 2020 after selling the FreedomPop MVNO business that he founded in 2012. In a statement, Dish said that he will leave the business “to pursue a new entrepreneurial venture.” His last day will be May 5.
Stokols isn’t the only high-profile executive to leave Dish. On the network side of the house, Stephen Bye, a wireless industry veteran with deep expertise in building networks, announced in January his decision to lead the connectivity division at Ziff Davis.
“The network that they’re building is very, very difficult,” said Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner. “It’s a 5G open RAN network without a fallback. It’s extremely hard.”
Incumbent operators like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have LTE networks that can carry voice traffic; Dish has no such fallback. Although it has MVNO deals with T-Mobile and AT&T, it’s building a whole new 5G network and the Voice over New Radio 5G service still isn’t running 100% of the time, he said.
Cable companies, which are ramping up their net additions in wireless, have the advantage of using their broadband sales channels to sell wireless, he noted.
Few have figured out how to do an online-only retail wireless business and make it work, with the possible exception of Mint Mobile, he said. However, Mint Mobile, which is being acquired by T-Mobile, also poured a lot of money into advertising, and Dish has not done the same for Boost.
“Building a retail presence, even if it’s an online-only retail presence, is very tough,” he said.