T-Mobile US is looking to leverage its self-described 5G network leadership to grow enterprise-facing business from less than 10% to 20% in the next five years. To that end, T-Mobile for Business has a new Senior Vice President of Sales in George Fischer, who’s taking over the role from the retiring James Kirby, according to the company.
Fischer, who’s based in Reston, Virginia, reports up to Mike Katz, the president of T-Mobile’s Business Group.
Right now T-Mobile has a 5G coverage lead given that the mid-band spectrum acquired through its acquisition of Sprint is deployed nationwide and is augmented by nationwide 600 MHz 5G, which is also built following a Standalone architecture. That said, AT&T and Verizon are prepping to activate their own mid-band 5G networks on Jan. 19 following a bizarre delay based on an 11th hour request from the FAA.
Fischer joins T-Mobile from Fiserv, a Fortune 500 financial technology and services firm. He also previously headed Verizon’s enterprise solutions business.
T-Mobile executives have been discussing their enterprise ambitions for about a year now. Back in March 2021, Katz laid it out in a presentation: “The number one prerequisite for success among the [enterprise] customers we serve is network…That is a huge benefit for us in a category where the buying approach puts wireless companies in rigorous head-to-head testing against the incumbent.”
He said, in its effort to better address the varying needs of verticals, T-Mobile would develop specialized sales and service teams attuned to the needs of those verticals. Katz said the goal isn’t just to be on enterprises’ radars but “top of mind for every CIO across America.”
In announcing Fischer’s new position, T-Mobile also teased a plan to bring multi-access edge computing and private network products “to market this year.”
Fischer will have the opportunity to drive even more growth, thanks to TfB’s plan to bring 5G Advanced Network Services like Multi-Access Edge Computing, and Private Networks to market this year. For latency-sensitive enterprise use cases, 5G needs to be coupled with distributed compute. And for businesses with exacting data security and data sovereignty rules or for operations that require types of service level agreements that would require a bespoke, on site network, private networks are an attractive solution.
