- No, it’s not a New York-style slice of pizza – it’s a network slice for public safety
- T-Mobile is pitching its new T-Priority service as superior because it’s built on a 5G standalone core
- The operator is going up against more established players in the public safety communications market: Verizon Frontline and the AT&T-backed FirstNet
Like the song says, if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere.
T-Mobile is applying that same adage to its public safety business, which is almost nil compared to Verizon Frontline and AT&T’s FirstNet market shares. But having snagged a contract with the City of New York, it’s well on its way to the big time. That’s the goal anyway.
During T-Mobile’s Capital Markets Day last week, T-Mobile Business Group President Callie Field announced that the City of New York will be the anchor customer for T-Priority, a new solution for first responders that provides a network slice. Network slicing is a feature of 5G standalone (SA), of which T-Mobile is the first to offer nationwide.
“This is a true testament to the power of T-Priority, considering that New York City is the city that FirstNet was initially built for,” Field told analysts at T-Mobile’s event in San Francisco. “We designed T-Priority with New York City and for New York City.”
The tragedies of 9/11 exposed the problems with first responders’ inability to communicate across agencies, prompting the 9/11 Commission to recommend the establishment of a nationwide, interoperable network specifically for public safety. The First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet Authority, was established, and in 2017, AT&T won the 25-year contract to provide the nationwide network for FirstNet.
“I am certainly not disrespecting the incredible work that both the government and the private sector did together in building out FirstNet,” Field told Fierce. “It was the right solution for its time, but it is on a 4G LTE infrastructure.”
Earlier this year, AT&T and FirstNet unveiled a series of investments totaling more than $8 billion to modernize their network over 10 years, including the creation of a 5G SA core and transitioning Band 14 spectrum from LTE to 5G.
Field said T-Mobile can offer a 5G SA core today, not some day in the future. T-Mobile offers a 5G SA network that boasts up to 40% more capacity and 2.5x the speeds of its rivals, she said.
But isn’t a slice a lot smaller than what AT&T is providing with an entire network dedicated to public safety?
Maybe “slice” doesn’t conjure up the best visual in this instance, she countered.
“With a slice, we’re not saying, ‘Hey, you only get a slice’ of our network,” she explained. “What we’re saying is we’re using that slice to be able to manage that first responder priority traffic across every single band in our 5G network. Our network already has more capacity. It already is two and a half times faster — and then what we’re going to do with the slice is above and beyond that.”
T-Mobile CTO John Saw — who while at Clearwire helped establish the rights to the 2.5 GHz spectrum that was eventually acquired by T-Mobile when it bought Sprint — noted T-Mobile’s spectrum position in 5G.
FirstNet has 20 megahertz of 700 MHz spectrum dedicated for public safety. T-Mobile says it’s making available the entire 238 megahertz of spectrum at its disposal which it can use for slicing to give priority to first responders. “It’s going to be a far superior experience than what they will ever get on the old FirstNet network,” he said.
“We have a much better network than something that they will build because of our spectrum strength. Essentially, been there, done that,” Saw told Fierce.
“Basically, what a slice does in 5G is it actually creates a virtual circuit, essentially a bespoke circuit to the end user that has its own quality of service and performance metrics. It’s something that isn’t available on 4G LTE or not even on all the technologies, like Wi-Fi. So not only are we giving first responders a higher priority, which is five times the resources of what a regular customer gets, this slice also works during extreme congestion when they need it the most,” he said.
Up against giants
Historically, Verizon boasted the largest market share of public safety. After all, it’s been around for decades. AT&T’s base with FirstNet is newer, but it’s the fastest growing.
Getting an accurate apples-to-apples comparison between the two is difficult because they count their public safety customers differently. As of June 2024, FirstNet had more than 6.1 million connections on its network, with more than 28,000 public safety agencies and organizations subscribed. A Verizon spokesperson told Fierce that its latest figures show more than 40,000 public safety agencies use Verizon Frontline.
Given that backdrop, isn’t it rather audacious for T-Mobile, with single-digit market share in this sector, to think it’s going to woo public safety users away from these more established behemoths?
Field said that’s why T-Mobile went to the largest police department in the country to find out what they needed and set out to deliver it.
The reasoning is: “If you can solve it for New York, you can solve it for the country,” Field said. “We’re starting with New York.”
Other agencies that T-Mobile has publicly named as customers are the Chicago Police Department and Los Angeles Fire Department.
Analysts: A slice at what price?
Analysts said T-Mobile’s coup with the City of New York is all well and good, but what’s unknown is how much T-Mobile undercut its rivals on price. That’s the role T-Mobile historically has played – approaching prospective customers with a lower priced solution than its competitors.
But given that T-Mobile has such a low market share in public safety, there’s nowhere to go but up. “Competition is good,” said Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner.
“The use of network slicing is interesting because this suggests to me that standalone 5G is farther ahead as their differentiation is a network slice for this offering,” said Bill Ho, founder of 556 Ventures. “I assume it provides a ‘dedicated channel’ for the agencies as it likely has its own SLAs [service-level agreements] and no co-mingling as a feature.”
It’s early days, but since it’s starting with almost nothing, it’s safe to say T-Mobile is growing its public safety base – regardless of how you slice it.
Article updated to reflect T-Mobile boasts up to 40% more capacity, not 40 times the capacity.