As T-Mobile US works to double its enterprise market share from less than 10% over the next five years, T-Mobile for Business Executive Vice President Mike Katz sees it as a “fundamental Un-carrier story,” according to a new blog post. Acknowledging the comparative market dominance enjoyed by AT&T and Verizon, Katz wrote, “Sometimes, starting at the back of the pack is the best way to win the race. That’s partly because seeing your competition out ahead is a powerful motivator. It’s also a great opportunity to watch the competition run the race, observe their strengths and weaknesses, and figure out the best strategy to beat them to the finish line.”
Despite its current market share, Katz wrote that T-Mobile counts some 80% of Fortune 50 companies as customers and called out deployments or pilots with major U.S. banks, energy companies, pharmaceutical firms and national retailers.
In terms of how it will gain enterprise customers, Katz said it would start with T-Mobile’s 5G network, which includes nationwide standalone network coverage using its low-band 600 MHz spectrum, and significant higher-performance network reach using the 2.5 GHz spectrum that came with the Sprint merger. T-Mo also has some limited millimeter wave frequency deployments in parts of some major metro areas. From there, Katz sees the shift to work-from-home bolstering the value prop of the company’s WFX offering; that bundles unlimited 5G plans; home broadband designed for secure business use; and the T-Mobile Collaborate cloud solution for business calling, messaging and conferencing.
Relative to its competition, Katz said T-Mobile sees “how the two old carriers are using their 90% market share to shackle business and governments to technologies and plans that cost a lot and deliver very little.”
In terms of tailoring 5G for vertical use cases, Katz said during a March event that the operator would develop specialized sales and service teams attuned to the needs of specific verticals. He said the goal isn’t just to be on enterprises’ radars but to be “top of mind for every CIO across America.”
Further, T-Mo has partnered with Lumen Technologies, formerly CenturyLink, to combine 5G with edge computing to help “enterprises effectively build, manage and scale applications across highly distributed environments,” according to an April press release. Customers can access Lumen’s “hundreds of thousands of on-net enterprise locations on the Lumen fiber network” using T-Mobile’s 5G network.
Katz said the combination will help T-Mo “break down industry barriers and deliver unparalleled network reach to enterprise and government organizations looking to optimize their applications across networks.”
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