T-Mobile’s Business Push, Technology Advantages, and 5G Slicing with Daryl Schoolar

Full Transcript

0m10s Speaker 0

Hello, and welcome to the two hundred and thirty eighth episode of The Week with Roger, a conversation between analysts about all things telecom, media and technology by Recon Analytics. I'm Don Kellogg, and with me as always is Roger Antner. How are doing, Roger?

0m22s Speaker 1

I'm awesome. So Roger,

0m24s Speaker 0

this week, we're pleased to invite Corey Davis to the podcast. Corey is the vice president at Verizon Frontline. Corey, welcome.

0m31s Speaker 2

Hey. Thanks, Don. Hey. Thanks, Roger. Great to be with you all today.

0m35s Speaker 1

Hey. Good to see you again, Corey. So Corey, explain to our listeners what Verizon Frontline does and how you're how you're different to what the other guys do.

0m47s Speaker 2

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I'll tell you, Roger. For thirty years, Verizon's been committed to delivering the most reliable, secure, and resilient mission critical communications solutions to public safety. So we support our nation's first responders with a purpose built award winning network where our communications are always prioritized.

1m6s Speaker 2

We have a dedicated crisis response team, twenty four seven best in class support and innovation. And today, more first responders trust Verizon Frontline for their reliability and mission critical communications than any other network provider hands down. So today, we serve over 40,000 public safety agencies, and that number continues to grow. I can tell you over the last two or three years, we've had very robust growth in this specific space. And we continue to see the innovations and the growth and these partnerships grow throughout Verizon Frontline and across the nation.

1m44s Speaker 2

One of the things that are helping grow that is our most reliable five gs network. So our five g ultra wideband network now covers more than 250,000,000 people across the country. And as all you know and your listeners know, you know, that means essentially, you know, 10 times faster, more capacity. And we do a public safety survey every year. We survey about 1,700 public safety officials across all of the states in The United States.

2m13s Speaker 2

And nearly 70% of those first responders feel that five g will either be a top or important priority for their agencies in the future. One of the other things that really differentiates us is really our redundancy, the reliability, the backup, the security that we put into the network. So a couple more stats here. We have nearly 80% of generator penetration across the country. So what that means is 80% of our big match growth sites have a generator that backs up in the times of commercial power failure.

2m47s Speaker 2

A 100% of those sites have battery backup. We have nearly 600 deployable assets that we can deploy on demand for public safety during crises and disasters. And crisis response team that I mentioned before, it's a dedicated team 20 fourseven. It's made up primarily of first responders and military members. Our Verizon Frontline Crisis Response Team in 2024 alone had over 1,500 responses.

3m14s Speaker 2

We were able to loan out over 10,000 solutions to over 800 agencies across 46 states. Not only that, we have over 200 certified drone pilots across Verizon and Verizon Frontline. And really innovation and partnering with public safety is at the forefront of everything that we do.

3m34s Speaker 1

That's big numbers. You know, when I look at the first responder market, I hear from everybody that they're working with more. One of my assumptions is that there were a lot of agencies that were unaligned, that were expensing individuals' cell phones. And that's a horrible thing for a first responder, especially if something gets subpoenaed. Where's the growth coming from?

3m59s Speaker 1

Is it from these previously unaligned agencies? Or what do you see?

4m5s Speaker 2

Well, I think, Roger, as the technology continues to get better, right, the networks continue to get better. One of the things that, you know, we do here at Verizon Frontline is we hold roundtables and listening sessions with first responders on, you know, what's the need? What are they hearing out there? What are some of their pain points? And the number one thing that we hear today is we need more capacity because everything that we're doing is data intensive.

4m31s Speaker 2

So I think, you know, the days of doing things from pen and paper even to digital mapping, which we're able to do with some of our drones, All of that is getting geared towards solutions, whether it's on phones, tablets, routers, in vehicles. Everything is starting to get done more digitally. So we're starting to see that appetite increase. And when you have a best in class solution like Verizon Frontline, there's a lot of attention to it. And we also feel like competition is very good in the industry.

5m2s Speaker 2

It continues to drive that innovation forward. And Verizon Frontline is leading the way in innovation to really help public safety professionals achieve their mission, not only more safely, but more efficiently during both routine and emergency response operations.

5m18s Speaker 1

You mentioned that the network is, like, purpose built for first responders. Can you expand a little bit on that?

5m24s Speaker 2

Yeah. So kind of the stats that I was talking about before. So everything that we're doing is based off of the feedback here at Verizon Frontline. So, I have the opportunity being on the Frontline team to go out and be part of some of these disasters and crises like Hurricane Helene, Milton, the LA fires. And we see it time and time again, when commercial power goes down, having nearly 80% of the generators or those macro sites on generators is a key, key differentiator.

5m55s Speaker 2

And I can tell you that number is even higher across the Gulf Coast. So you look at Brownsville, Texas, the way to Naples, Florida, we're in the high 90s. Over 95% of those macro sites have generator backup. Also, our deployables that we're deploying out in the field, you all probably remember Thor that we launched a few years ago, really big, lots of solutions built for us to your environments. Well, what we're doing now is trying to shrink those solutions.

6m21s Speaker 2

So what you'll see going forward is so that we don't have to bring in a large asset and take up a lot of footprint during these disasters. Our goal is to shrink that and make them smaller and smaller. And we've deployed things like our rapid response connectivity unit, which is something that can be set up with one person. It can be set up within probably fifteen minutes to a half hour. It's using both LEO technology and GEO technology.

6m47s Speaker 2

And it's really, really good for rapid deployments. So that's really one of the things that we're seeing in a differentiator between us and others is we're able to innovate, work closely with public safety, build our network based off of the feedback that we're getting to make sure that it is purpose built for public safety. Another thing, Roger, I know you and Don talk about a lot is our fiber holdings. Over 50% of the cell sites that I just talked about has our own fiber running to them. That's another advantage that we have here at Verizon Frontline.

7m19s Speaker 1

Yeah. And with some disasters, even when when you have all the backup, it's not enough. Right? You have mobile assets. How do you stack up in that category?

7m31s Speaker 2

So, yeah, Raj, that's a great question. And as it pertains to deployables, you know, that's the key focus for our Verizon frontline innovation program. So we actually just launched three assets this year alone. We launched a few before that. As you remember, Thor, which we launched, I believe it was back in 2021.

7m50s Speaker 2

So really what our goal is is to work with industry, work with partners, a very robust ecosystem. We're working with over 30 partners across the Verizon Frontline Innovation Program to make these deployable assets smaller, shrink the footprint, and really be able to go into these austere environments and not take up a bunch of space and compete with others that are coming in. So for example, we built what's called our rapid response connectivity unit. This is a very small unit. It can be on the back of the vehicle.

8m20s Speaker 2

It can be stood up by one person in about fifteen minutes to a half hour. It uses LEO satellite technology and can support up to 200 users. Really good for things like a fire base camp or a mobile command setup at an event or at a disaster. So we're really, really excited. And that thirty year partnership really gives that credibility because Verizon Frontline was truly built from the ground up to meet those unique and evolving needs for first responders and the public safety community.

8m51s Speaker 1

That's quite a commitment. Can you give us a couple of examples of how Verizon Frontline has worked with first responders? Unfortunately, we had, like, quite a few disasters recently, and I have the feeling we will have some more. Right?

9m7s Speaker 2

Yeah. No. No. Absolutely. So we're working, like I said, our Verizon frontline crisis response team, you know, last year alone had over 1,500 responses.

9m15s Speaker 2

I can tell you this year, we've been really, really busy, you know, supporting things like the presidential election. So we did a lot of work there with the government agencies that supported those events. We've been supporting the LA fires. That started at the January. We continue to do exercises as well, specifically with DOD and state and local agencies.

9m37s Speaker 2

Last year alone, we did over 70 exercises in partnership with state and local and DOD. This year, we were out of Patriot twenty five. That continues to be a great exercise for us as well where we're able to work with the DOD and go through some scenarios and exercises. You know, we got kind of a tagline here at Verizon Frontline where we don't wanna be passing business cards in the middle of a gray sky disaster crisis event. So it's really a key and fundamental pillar of Verizon Frontline for us to get out, partner with customers, pressure test technology together, understand who is who in the environment.

10m14s Speaker 2

So then when that crisis does come up, everybody knows who to call, and everybody knows what capabilities they are bringing to the theater. So we've had a history of proven success throughout Verizon Frontline working with these partnerships and these exercises. It's really, really enabled us to sharpen our pencils. It's enabled us to build on our playbooks. And then something else that we do, Roger and Don, is we do a lot of after action reviews.

10m42s Speaker 2

So anytime we handle an exercise or we do anytime a crisis response like a Helene or a Milton or LA wildfire, for example, as recent examples, is we sit down with those agencies and we talk about it. We talk about what we're right, what we're wrong. Look. We have the best network possibly on the planet, but we know we're not perfect either. So we're working day to day diligently because we know how important these communications are to public safety to ensure that when we're called upon, it just works.

11m13s Speaker 2

And that's really what public safety needs.

11m15s Speaker 1

Alright. Sukari, what else are you excited about?

11m19s Speaker 2

Yeah. Roger, one other thing that I'm really excited about is our Verizon Frontline Verified program, which we launched about a year ago. So right now, what we're doing is we're taking these OEMs and these manufacturers, and we certify equipment onto our network. Right? We do rigorous testing.

11m36s Speaker 2

But this is another set of testing that we do in a steer environments to ensure that that equipment is mission ready and it is built for public safety. So we have put many partners through that program and through the labs. So then what that does is that also enables them to be able to put you know, on their marketing and to go out and market together to say, hey. This solution has been pressure tested. It is Verizon Frontline verified.

12m5s Speaker 2

It's mission ready, and we have the data analysis to back it up.

12m9s Speaker 1

So what kind of devices are or what kind of equipment is that?

12m13s Speaker 2

Think of everything. We're verifying whether it's smartphones, routers, devices that are doing things like smart blending. We're also doing antennas, things that bring in RF and increase the RF. So we have a a gamut of solutions that we're verifying to ensure that they are mission ready for our public safety customers.

12m35s Speaker 1

That's cool. Alright. Well, thank you, Corey, for coming on the show.

12m40s Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Rogers. Thanks, Don. Appreciate all you guys do out there too, and stay safe out

12m44s Speaker 0

there. Alright. Thanks, Roger. We'll talk

12m46s Speaker 1

to you next week. Thank you.