Dish Network’s 5G ambitions are off to an ignominious start, with the company losing hundreds of thousands of phone customers, while still promising a major 5G expansion.

Dish is working to rollout a 5G network as the fourth nationwide carrier in the US. Unfortunately for Dish, rolling out a 5G network is not an easy proposition, and the company has lost 343,000 net wireless subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. This is up from 161,000 subscribers in the year-ago quarter.

The news wasn’t much better for its satellite TV service, with the company losing 462,000 subscribers, compared to 230,000 in the year-ago quarter.

Despite the bad news, according to CNET, Dish has promised its 5G network will cover one-fifth of the US by the middle of June 2022, despite only covering a single city at the time of writing.

Dish gained a large amount of spectrum and resources as a byproduct of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint. Both companies were forced to divest themselves of various assets in order to win regulatory approval. In particular, regulators were concerned about the industry consolidating from four to three nationwide wireless carriers. The goal was to help Dish replace Sprint as the fourth.

Only time will tell if Dish is able to successfully fill that role.