Channel Partners Conference & Expo is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Who joined us in Vegas this March? And what did they think? Access the post-show report >>
Craig: “Alright, hey again everyone. Craig Galbraith Editorial Director with Channel Futures here. Looking ahead to the Channel Partners Conference and Expo and MSP Summit, less than two weeks away now. We've got our title sponsor for the Channel Partners Conference and Expo, T-Mobile for Business here. Paul Spencer, Channel Chief. Paul, how are you?”
Paul: “Good Craig, nice to see you again.”
Craig: “You as well, looking forward to that big T-Mobile booth in the Expo Hall. A lot of partners are going to get a good chance to catch up with you guys. So let's talk about T-Mobile for Business and some opportunities for partners out there. What's maybe the biggest one for your partners today?”.
Paul: “Yeah, so I think it's a topic that's pretty relevant. Fixed wireless is something that continues to be a huge opportunity for partners, that they continue to engage with us on. I don't want to steal a lot of thunder from the keynote, but last year when I was talking on stage, I talked about how T-Mobile will be the number-one ISP in the country. We’ll just say that that's continued.”
“And so there continues to be a significant opportunity for our partners to help out customers in terms of their outcomes. We continue to see a big convergence of what was terrestrial landline, fiber-fixed wireless type of access that was out there transforming over to cellular.”
“There's a lot of capabilities that we offer relative to our standalone network. I'll save some of the thunder talking about it, but there's a significant opportunity there. I’d say fixed wireless continues to be one of the biggest places where we partner with partners.”
Craig: “Very cool. So let's get into that a little more. Maybe talk about any good wins that partners can have with fixed wireless and maybe any advice you give to those who haven't sold it before? Where would they start?”
Paul: “Yeah, that's a great question. So we've had significant success in a couple of different spaces. One would be retail. There's a couple of marquee customers out there, one being tractor supply.”
“It sounds kind of funny to say tractor supply because your first thought probably goes: ‘aren't they a role company?’. Yes, they are a role company. It also speaks to the breadth of our standalone network that we built over the last three and a half years post-acquisition of Sprint.”
“The other big one if you want to go metro is a retailer called CVS. They've got some locations in most cities. We're a primary provider of CVS as well. And those are two opportunities that I'll tell you, we either worked with partners on or partners brought to us.”
“The third capacity would be, or the second vertical would be around hospitality. And Craig, that's not so much as it is just fixed wireless as it is our overall network. Meaning we had a significant win that we had a partner that brought to us and we co-sealed the deal with last year with Boston Children's Health. Which is the number one children's hospital in the country for nine out of the last 10 years.”
“Their entire network now runs on T-Mobile. There's a significant amount of work that went into that deal in order for us to do that, but it’s a huge, huge opportunity.”
“And then last but not least, this is not necessarily a partner win, I just think it's super, super cool. But for anybody that went to F1, and you were at the F1 race, that whole network was T-Mobile. And there is a litany of stories that came out of the whole networking scene that happened out there.”
“But if you think of speed and capacity, I don't know that you get faster than F1. And that whole race was run on the back of T-Mobile.”
Craig: “That is very cool. And hey, I get my dog food attractor supply just down the road. So I know that's a big operation.”
Paul: “Next time you go there, look and you'll see the whole entire POS, everything they do in the store is run off T-Mobile.
Craig: “I will look next time I'm down there for sure.”
Craig: “So let's talk about the event, Paul. You're gonna be on stage with some other members of the T-Mobile for Business team talking about the future of connectivity and security.”
“You alluded to that keynote a moment ago. Maybe preview that session for us just a little bit. And like you said, you don't wanna give away the whole thing, but what are partners in the audience gonna get out of that?”
Paul: “Yeah, it's a little bit of a personal story for me, Craig, but the market is relevant for it. I've been chasing the connected laptop market for the better part of 15-plus years. And we're at this convergence point here, almost where I'd say fixed wireless was 24 months ago. Does it make sense to remove a cable and move to fully wireless?”.
“Now, in the sense of a laptop, obviously you have Wi-Fi, so that's not removing a cable, but the customer experience has become ubiquitous across either Wi-Fi or a connected network or connected laptop on T-Mobile's network”.
“And so we're going to spend some time talking about connected laptops for sure. I'm also going to talk about fixed wireless. We'll talk about collaboration tools that we have in the marketplace too that we've been doing a lot of work with partners on.”
“So there's going to be something for everybody, but connected laptops are going to be one of the keys in the market for the keynote.”
Craig: “It’s going to be a great conversation. So Paul, I mentioned the booth, you always have a great one, close to the front of the Expo Hall. For those prospective partners who come by and talk to you at the booth or elsewhere at the event, what's the main message you’ve got for them?”
Paul: “When you’re trying to solve your customer's outcomes or business problems, there's a couple of different ways to look at it.”
“One is you may have a customer you’ve been working with for the last 10-15 years. Maybe it’s a technology you’ve sold them but it’s remained relevant in the marketplace. They’re probably looking for something different. They’re either going to buy it from you hopefully or a competitor of yours.”
“The technology landscape continues to change. Everything that is going on from a technology perspective, you’re generally going to need a connectivity piece to that. Most likely you’re going to need wireless connectivity.”
“My plea to the Channel Partner community is, there are so many proof points for us to talk about. That partnership should be with T-Mobile. We’d love to talk to partners about how we help you solve your customer’s outcome problems. There’s so many different things out there we could partner with them on.”
Craig: “Absolutely Paul. Thanks for your time today with Channel Futures TV. As always we appreciate T-Mobile for Business Title Sponsorship of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo. We’ll see you real soon.”
Paul: “Sounds good. Thanks Craig.”