Dish Wireless is facing a big year in 2022. As part of its commitments pursuant the Sprint/T-Mobile/Dish deal, the company has pledged to cover 20% of the U.S. population by June 2022 with its greenfield 5G network. And it hasn’t even gone live yet in Las Vegas, where it had hoped to turn on its 5G network in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Perhaps in response to the urgency of its situation, today, Dish Network promoted John Swieringa to president and chief operating officer of Dish Wireless.
In this expanded role, Swieringa will be responsible for all operational aspects of Dish's wireless business, including the deployment of the 5G network. He also will continue to lead Dish's retail wireless business.
His direct reports include the top wireless executives at the company: Stephen Bye, EVP and chief commercial officer, Dave Mayo, EVP of network development, Marc Rouanne, EVP and chief network officer, and Stephen Stokols, EVP of retail wireless.
Swieringa will report to Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen.
Swieringa has been with Dish since 2008 where he’s risen up the ranks from director of finance, to CIO, to head of retail wireless.
"John's a 14-year veteran of Dish and is committed to changing the way the world communicates with our unique capabilities," said Ergen, in a statement. "His experience in our overall business will help to maximize our wireless opportunities within all lines of the business."
"I am excited to lead and further integrate our wireless strategy, deployment and operations efforts," said Swieringa. "We have a significant opportunity as we prepare to commercialize our wireless investments and deliver value to our customers, company and shareholders."
In 2020, FierceWireless profiled Swieringa as a “Rising Star.” In that profile he talked about his efforts to lead the integration of Dish’s acquisitions of Boost Mobile and Ting Mobile.
RELATED: 2020 FierceWireless Rising Star — Dish's John Swieringa
At the time Swieringa said, “We need to compete successfully as an MVNO by providing better wireless prices and choices to consumers, while simultaneously building out our team and our capabilities as we prepare to launch our 5G network. We’re running toward those goals in parallel.”
Since then, Boost Mobile has been embroiled in a controversy with T-Mobile about the shut-down timeline of T-Mobile’s CDMA network, which Boost uses.
RELATED: Dish says Neville Ray testified 14 times about CDMA timeline
The CDMA dispute is not yet resolved, but Ergen must think Swieringa is overseeing it well, based on today’s news of his promotion.