T-Mobile US launched a portable approach to private 5G connectivity that further bolsters the carrier’s differentiated path from rivals in targeting the still evolving edge network space.

The 5G On Demand product is based around a small refrigerator-sized box that weighs around 200 pounds, which lends it a sense of portability. It houses an Ericsson EP 5G box that runs as a private 5G core that can self-provision and attach itself to the T-Mobile macro-network in less than 48 hours.

Mishka Dehghan, SVP for strategy, product, and solutions engineering at T-Mobile US’ Business Group, explained in an interview that the product’s small stature is “about giving optionality to customers.”

“It's going to enable businesses that have a need for a private network, but only on a temporary basis, to have access to a private network without the deployment costs, the deployment resources and the planning, the very long planning cycles that are typically required for a permanent private network deployment,” Dehghan said.

The product has already seen use in the media space, having been used at a pair of golf tournaments. The carrier has also used its network slicing capabilities to support broadcast media efforts.

“We were able to set up this 5G On Demand solution for them, and really ensuring that it would allow the broadcasters at the event, the organizers, and the media broadcasting teams that were there, to have access to the type of low latency, high bandwidth solutions that only a private network delivers,” Dehghan said.

The initial media work has tapped into T-Mobile US’ millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum, but Dehghan said the system has access to all of the carrier’s available spectrum bands.

The deployment model is based on coverage needs, with different options tied to whether a customer buys, leases, or integrated the platform as part of a broader private network deployment.

“We haven't really talked publicly about our pricing architecture yet, which we will do when the solution goes [general availability] at the end of the year, but it's really about giving the customers the flexibility and the option to have something that's best suited for the use case that they have, which is not going to be a fixed infrastructure deployment,” Dehghan said.

T-Mobile US’ private network positioning

Dehghan stressed that the 5G On Demand system is complimentary to the carrier’s broader private 5G efforts, noting that the latter is a fixed-location product that typically has a longer-deployment cycle and higher costs.

It also builds on the carrier’s somewhat understated approach to the private 5G and multi-access edge compute (MEC) space. This is based on the T-Mobile US Advanced Network Solutions (ANS) platform.

T-Mobile US unveiled its ANS suite in mid-2022, positioning it as a selection of 5G network and edge services targeted at enterprise and government customers. It included a trio of initial components, including the Public Network, Hybrid Mobile Network, and Private Mobile Network. That initial launch also include work with vendor partners Ericsson, Nokia, and Dell Technologies.

Dehghan said that the ANS launch underscored T-Mobile US’ different view of the market compared to rivals.

“Where others were really seeing the combination of MEC and private network working together, we didn't see that,” Dehghan said. “We took our time in terms of launching a portfolio of solutions. For us it was really around purpose-built connectivity for customers that will give them the flexibility to adopt the type of solution that's best for the outcome that they're trying to achieve. So that's why we said, ‘hey, we're going to have the fully private, the hybrid, and also just leverage our macro network,’ which, quite frankly, is so robust that often time you don't need to have a fully private network to run the type of use cases. And whether the customer decides to run some mobile edge computing on site, where the action is, where the data is, they can leverage that purpose-built connectivity to do so.”

T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert during an investor conference earlier this year touted private network wins with the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Defense (DoD), and Delta Airlines.

T-Mobile US rival Verizon has been more vocal with its push into the private 5G space. This includes some significant recent deals and modest claims of ongoing market traction.

“We were doing a couple of private networks a month, we are doing a lot more than that,” Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO for Verizon’s Consumer Unit, recently told an audience at the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet and Communications Conference 2024.

This echoed comments from Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg who told investors during the carrier’s most recent earnings that progress was indeed at hand and helping to bolster other opportunities.

“On the 5G use cases, now we start talking more and more about private networks because the number of them are many, then the value of them are still fairly small,” Vestberg said. “But when we build that base of private network, managed spectrum for enterprises, that, over time, is going to be a great opportunity for our enterprise sales force to add in, do the mobile edge compute.”

While Verizon and T-Mobile US’ recent successes have highlighted evolving opportunities, other operators have remained quiet on the topic or retrenched.

AT&T, for instance, has been relatively subdued on its private 5G progress.

Alicia Dietsch, SVP of business marketing for AT&T, told SDxCentral in an interview last year that it was still early days and work was still needed on deployment and management models.

“I’d squarely put it a little more in the continued experimentation, starting-to-scale space because I think it’s as much about making sure that there’s enough infrastructure deployed to be able to use it extensively,” Dietsch said.

AT&T’s management has also been very quiet on the topic, with private 5G opportunities being notably absent from recent remarks.