Dish Network Looking At Sprint / Clearwire Partnership

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While I was watching the livestream of the A Stream Come True event, which we covered for you just a couple days ago, I couldn’t help but watch with some skepticism. One major component of their streaming plans, which admittedly, were ambitious to say the least, seemed missing. But now, with some recent word from Dish Network’s CEO, that last piece of the puzzle may have fell into place with a nearly audible click.

Dish’s CEO, in an interview with Bloomberg, got to talking about some potential partnerships, and among them was the key giveaway. The partnership talk turned to Sprint and Clearwire, and things started making sense. It wasn’t just partnerships, either–there was also some talk of acquisitions.

See, when Dish was talking about using its revived Blockbuster brand in Blockbuster Movie Pass, the usual question for me cropped up about bandwidth. Dish’s only real foray into the internet service provider concept is its thing with WildBlue, purveyors of a satellite internet service that isn’t exactly up to the task of streaming large quantities of even standard definition video. So how, I wondered, was Dish going to make its Stream Come True, to borrow the name, a reality in the face of overwhelming internet service providers’ policies preventing same? And then I caught wind of this, and it all clicked into place.

If Dish Network were to get involved with a 3G / 4G wireless provider like Sprint or Clearview, and then put some cash into the upgrading of same, they’d not only have the content they’d need to stream large amounts of video, but they’d also be able to offer the infrastructure on which to do it as well. Considering that Dish Network already has a bit of the wireless spectrum in its back pocket, such a partnership / acquisition would take care of one of streaming’s biggest problems: bandwidth.

So what do you guys think about this? Figure that Dish Network will start looking into internet service provider sources so it can offer up the bandwidth to make its streaming a reality? Or will this just be one more tale of corporate dealing that doesn’t pan out? Either way, we want to hear from you, so hit the comments section and tell us what you think!