T-Mobile announces a new platform for enterprise customers. It is launching three new products that leverage T-Mobile’s 5G network and a partnership with Dialpad. Among the products announced, T-Mobile will begin offering “Home Office 5G Internet” plans that compete with cable providers. It will also be getting into the cloud-based collaboration business that can replace an office-based PBX, video and voice conferencing, and integrates with Office 365 apps. Finally, there’s a full enterprise solution that includes unlimited 5G data.
Starting with T-Mobile’s Home Office 5G,
this will come with a dedicated 5G router. With the way T-Mobile is wording
this, it looks like Home Office 5G is a dedicated internet connection for
office work that’s designed for customers whose regional internet connection may
be slow or unreliable. A Home Office 5G line will start at $90 per month and
depending on tower congestion, they may be throttled after 50GB of usage during
the month. As well, video streaming will be optimized for 480p resolution. This
is certainly not a plan to replace your home internet.
T-Mobile Collaborate is a work platform
that’s meant to replace a typical office PBX (switching phone box system). With
more employees working from home, this solution would let businesses set up
video meetings, conference calls, and would let employees transfer calls to
other departments of the business. All these solutions are cloud-based so they
virtualize the way an office communicates within or across departments.
Collaborate will also integrate with
Office 365 apps to further leverage an existing office suite subscription with
Microsoft. Finally, Enterprise Unlimited requires an account with 11 mobile
lines or more. This will come with unlimited 5G/4G data, 10GB of tethering per
line (after which you’ll be reduced to 3G speeds), and it comes with access to
T-Mobile’s Collaborate.
These plans certainly do not cater to
consumers, and the Home Internet 5G will not replace a home internet plan since
there’s a data cap. These solutions may be beneficial for some small and medium
sized businesses who might pay a lot to receive business internet and landline
services, which are always priced at a significant premium compared to consumer
plans.
It’s interesting to see how corporate
solutions are changing to serve businesses who have switched to working almost
completely from home. Mobile carriers might continue to take business from
regional service providers as 5G becomes more and more able to support massive data
infrastructures. We should see a jump in home 5G internet in the coming years.
