T-Mobile US looped Ericsson, Nokia, and Dell Technologies into expanding the wireless carrier’s 5G network into the enterprise and mobile edge computing (MEC) markets. The moves bolster T-Mobile’s push to provide a complete product to customers.

The broader work is under T-Mobile’s newly launched 5G Advanced Network Solutions moniker. This is a selection of 5G network and edge services targeted at enterprise and government customers.

The first component is the T-Mobile Public Network that the carrier describes as being “architected so that data travels less distance from the device to the compute resource and back.”

The second is the carrier’s Hybrid Mobile Network that offers “faster speeds, lower latency and/or dedicated reliability.”

The final component is its Private Mobile Network for “Customers who need the highest speeds, reliability, and ultra-low latency.”

T-Mobile did not provide specific details on how each part of the new platform are architecturally different, but it did point to how each can take advantage of the carrier’s different spectrum bands. It also said that this 5G-based selection is superior to wired or WiFi-based offerings due to greater mobility compared with the former and offers greater coverage than the latter.

“Our mission is to help enterprise customers realize the value of real-time data in making decisions that help their businesses run faster, more efficiently, and stay ahead of the curve as 5G transforms the landscape,” Mishka Dehghan, SVP of strategy, product, and solutions engineering at T-Mobile Business Group, wrote in a statement.

This echoes previous comments from T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert that enterprise customers don’t want to piece together a network solution.

“Enterprises don’t want to be buying and deploying assets. They want to have networking as a service. They want to have computing as a service, and that does raise very interesting prospects for our business as it relates to being able to ultimately serve enterprise customers with networking as a service,” Sievert said during a T-Mobile US earnings call last year.

T-Mobile US Taps Vendors for Help

Specific to each vendor, T-Mobile US is working with Ericsson to provide its private 5G hardware and software. This includes Ericsson’s radio access network (RAN) and core.

With Nokia, T-Mobile US is developing its 5G Private Mobile Network and Hybrid Mobile Networks services. This will include the use of Nokia Digital Automation Cloud Private Network solution.

Ericsson and Nokia are both primary RAN vendors for T-Mobile US.

For its 5G Private Mobile Network service, T-Mobile US is working with Dell to pair its 5G private network with Dell’s edge computing resources. This includes using Dell’s VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) that can be located in an on-premises location and managed by T-Mobile US.

These deals come a year after T-Mobile US inked its first 5G edge deal. That agreement was with Lumen Technologies that tied the vendor’s fiber assets into the carrier’s enterprise plans.

5G and MEC Expansion

They also come on the heels of similar moves by rivals.

Verizon earlier this year invested in cloud-native network core platform provider Casa Systems in a move to bolster its private 5G and MEC efforts. It’s also working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on city-based MWC deployments.

AT&T is working with Microsoft on its Private 5G Edge service that uses Microsoft Azure private MEC with Azure Private 5G Core to help enterprises deploy private networks on licensed or unlicensed spectrum. The carrier is also working with Google Cloud and IBM on other 5G MEC services.