Dish Network is to build a network based on the NB-IoT machine-to-machine technology, in order to fulfil FCC requirements to build out its spectrum. It is trying to bill its deployment as a 5G IoT system, and some commentators got excited about this being the first US 5G network from an operator with no existing cellular platform. In reality, though, it looks like a stopgap solution to give Dish breathing space to decide what to do with its airwaves, and perhaps to plot a real 5G strategy for the early 2020s. After it acquired its first batch of spectrum, from two bankrupt mobile satellite operators, Dish was going to deploy LTE-Advanced. But it long ago realized it had missed the…