Dish Networks CEO Joe Clayton plans to retire at the end of March. Clayton will be succeeded by Dish founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen. Ergen served as Dish’s CEO until 2011, when he handed daily operations of the company over to Clayton.
Together Ergen and Clayton have pushed Dish towards becoming a wireless company, though it has yet to launch any sort of mobile service other than its satellite TV business. Dish was a big player in the recent AWS-3 spectrum auction and won $13.3 billion in spectrum licenses.
Ergen told the Wall Street Journal he believes the wireless industry is “relatively in its infancy” and has plenty of room to grow.
“Some people in the [wireless industry] today run the business as a mature business, but behind the scenes they clearly see that this thing has got another 50 years to go,” he said.
Dish has not yet revealed any plans to offer wireless service.
