UPDATE In response to our October 8 story regarding AT&T’s comments on T-Mobile’s T-Priority announcement, T-Mobile sought to clarify some points in answers to Inside Towers’ questions.
- How does T-Priority differ from AT&T FirstNet and Verizon Frontline?
T-Priority offers more capacity, faster speeds, and better coverage, than the competition. With T-Priority, first responders not only get priority and preemption on the largest, fastest and most advanced 5G network, they also get the benefits of the world’s first network slice for public safety. This means lower latency and faster 5G speeds more consistently and the highest priority across every single 5G band even in times of extreme congestion.
The slice is enabled by T-Mobile’s 5G standalone [5G SA] network and core. We rolled this out back in 2020 and it’s the largest scaled 5G SA network in the U.S. today. Verizon and AT&T still haven’t launched 5G standalone which means they can’t offer slicing with these capabilities. AT&T announced earlier this year that they’re still years away from offering a 5G SA core on FirstNet, and that they’ll need to invest billions of dollars for enhancements.
- When, and with which type of facilities or organization(s), was T-Priority tested to demonstrate its public safety communications capabilities?
While T-Priority hasn’t officially launched yet, testing around the first responder benefits of the T-Priority slice has been underway for months.
And slicing is nothing new for us. Slicing requires the most advanced type of 5G network – 5G standalone. T-Mobile was the first provider in the world to roll out a 5G standalone network back in 2020, and we run the largest scaled 5G standalone network in the U.S. today. This means we’ve had years of testing and proving network slicing using 3GPP standards. We’ve used network slicing at some of the largest, most congested events in the U.S. — like the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix — and we even launched the world’s first commercial network slice with our T-Mobile security slice last year.
- Does T-Priority operate inside buildings?
Yes, the T-Priority network slice provides the highest priority for first responders wherever they are, whether it’s inside a building or in a rural area.
- Are first responders able to access and use T-Priority today?
T-Priority will be launching later this year, more details to follow soon.
- Which public safety agencies have signed up for T-Priority?
T-Priority is not yet available. However, over 1,000 departments of all sizes have reached out and are highly interested in first access with T-Priority, some stating that their current networks aren’t giving them the capacity they need in regular times of operation, let alone in emergency situations.
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