T-Mobile launches 5G products to compete with Verizon, AT&T for business clients

By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - T-Mobile on Monday launched a suite of 5G products to lure business clients and capture some of the market share of rivals Verizon and AT&T, and has signed up customers including an automaker, an airline operator and a theme park.

The product suite, what it calls 5G advanced network solutions, will offer three levels - from a complete private 5G network to sharing space over a public network, Callie Field, T-Mobile's president of business group, told Reuters. Field declined to name the customers.

T-Mobile, armed with a bigger share of spectrum that is ideal for 5G than Verizon and AT&T, is trying to make a dent in acquiring business customers despite the dominance of its more established rivals.

One of its clients, SailGP, is using T-Mobile's private 5G in San Francisco where it saw latency drop by 50% compared with Wi-Fi while sending real-time analytics from boats traveling at 60 miles per hour.

Having a private 5G network helps businesses avoid jostling for speed with others on a public network and enables data-intensive applications.

Ports, airports, warehouses and logistics hubs are expected to be the first adopters of private 5G, and IDC private wireless infrastructure revenue to reach $8.3 billion by 2026 from $1.7 billion in 2021.

Field said T-Mobile was working with Dell for "edge computing" infrastructure for private 5G but could work with a vendor that a customer chooses as well.

"Edge computing" helps in analyzing bulk data where it was gathered - factory floor or an oil rig - before moving it to remote servers, attracting big technology companies to offer their expertise.

T-Mobile, in which Deutsche Telekom owns a 48.4% stake, has been gaining subscribers following its merger with Sprint and as it rolls out its 5G service.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, European Technology & Telecoms Correspondent, based in Stockholm; Editing by Bernadette Baum)