Invisible Infrastructure with T-Mobile for Business

0:00There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. an unexpected diagnosis, the sudden end of a relationship, the loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist, and my new book, The Other Side of Change, Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, is all about how we navigate these inflection points. The Other Side of Change pairs singular, real-life stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives, not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be?

0:42I'm thrilled to share that Booklist gave The Other Side of Change one of its coveted starred reviews, saying, quote, It's impossible not to be moved. The Other Side of Change is out now. Get your copy today, wherever you like to buy books.

1:05Pushkin.

1:31have not even thought about. The conversation you're about to hear falls into that category. In fact, as I introduce it to you, it sounds like the start of a three guys walk into a bar joke. It was a top executive from CNN, Guy Griggs, Steve Douglas from Siemens Energy, the person who runs the maintenance operations for one of the biggest power companies in the United States, and Mo Kadaba, the chief marketing officer for T-Mobile for Business. We sat down together in New York City not long ago, and we talked about something called slicing, a technology T-Mobile uses to help ensure that when someone absolutely needs a strong network connection, they can get a strong network connection.

2:165G network slicing strengthens trust and connections across worldwide industries. Think about this next time you see a CNN correspondent correspondent reporting from some far-flung remote location, or there's a massive blackout and you're waiting for someone to get the power back on. What you see in both those cases is a professional doing their job. What you don't see is a technology network behind the scenes that makes it possible for them to do their job. This conversation is about telling the story of that invisible technological infrastructure. I found it fascinating, and I'm sure you will too.

2:58There's two ideas I want to explore today. The first one is something that I've been struck by, and I'm sure all of you guys have been struck by, which is that the benefits to technological advancement are largely hidden. In other words, only insiders kind of know what the implications of them are. From the outside, you can't observe from the outside and know how it changes a specific field unless you're in the field. So one of the things I want to do today is have people in the field tell me about all the unexpected ways in which technology changes their business. And the larger theme, though, is that we're going to be talking a lot today about infrastructure and this idea that infrastructure is more than simply a kind of passive structural participant in innovation.

3:44But I want to start with Mo. We're here today because we're talking about something special that T-Mobile for Business is doing from a technological standpoint. I want you to describe what it is, sort of to set up our conversation, and to give us an example from your own world about how that's made a difference. Thank you. First and foremost, great to be here with you today, and it's great to see you again. So what T-Mobile and T-Mobile for Business have been doing is innovating our network and creating the most advanced 5G network, frankly, in America and likely on the planet. We call it 5G advanced capabilities.

4:25And then with our business customers, we're really bringing this capability to life that's called slicing. And to your point, this is a term that not everyone knows. They don't know what it does. And slicing is just a way of thinking about, hey, if you have a network, can you take a slice of that network and create specific performance characteristics via that slice to ensure that businesses are able to drive the outcomes that are important to them? as an example at the Formula One in Las Vegas that happened a few weeks ago in November, that portion of that network, that slice, can be used for things like ticketless entry to speed up 300 ,000 people getting in so that they can enjoy the sport and the action.

5:10It can be used for back office operations, all the people working behind the scenes. They may be using push-to-talk devices. They may be using point-of-sale to make a sale. How do you ensure that that transaction, that traffic, that push to talk click happens when you have hundreds of thousands of people all in a small limited space. And the answer to that is you dedicate a slice or a portion of the network to that mission. And so slicing can be used for so many different things. As you mentioned, we're here with our friends from CNN, from Siemens Energy. The ways that can be used, frankly, are limitless and are really, really built to think through how can T-Mobile understand the pain points that our customers have, smash those pain points, and help you deliver very specific outcomes.

6:00That's slicing. A couple of questions about slicing before we get into Siemens Energy and CNN. First off, I want to dedicate a slice because that's a way of what? Ensuring the reliability of those transactions? Exactly. So what's beautiful about slicing is it gives us the ability to use multiple knobs and levers. One can be dedicating a piece. One can be increasing the reliability or the performance of the network to adapt to the needs in real time. Others can be, and we're getting a little bit more technical here, but latency. How quickly is that transaction happening? How quickly are you talking to the network and that signal coming back?

6:41Some transactions require super low latency, and that's another knob we can turn. But at the Part of it, you can think about reliability and ensuring that the network adapts in real time to the needs of the business. When did you guys start to develop slicing? This is how new. Great, great question. So, T-Mobile was the first company in America to deploy what's called 5G standalone. And 5G standalone enabled this set of capabilities. The first slice at scale that we deployed was with F1 in Las Vegas three years ago. And ever since then, there's been Ryder Cup and Major League Baseball All-Star Week, as an example.

7:22All of these things have used slicing capability to ensure that the business can do what they want. And is it an evolving technology? In other words, is the slicing of today better than the slicing of two years ago? Yeah, wonderful question. Just in 2025, we announced two very major first-of-their-kind slices in the U.S. One that we launched in February of 2025 is called T-Priority. And really what that does is provides a slice for first responders and those folks that support our first responder communities. Because at the end of the day, what matters to police and fire and EMS, emergency medical, is ensuring that the network is working for them at those times when an emergency is happening.

8:05When lots of first responders may be showing up at the same time to a given scene. So giving them the capacity that they need in real time and expanding it to support the number of first responders that are showing up. And then the second major slice that we launched this year is one called Supermobile. And it's actually the one that both CNN and Siemens Energy are using. And we're going to get into that, I think, a bit more. Yeah, yeah. Guy, tell us a little bit about what you do at CNN and how you came to be interested in working with T-Mobile and using this super slice. Yeah, sure. So I oversee all of our partnerships, advertising relationships across the country.

8:46I'm all about coming up with smart solutions that drive better business outcomes for our partners and our advertisers. We're going through this pivotal moment of transformation, and I'm glad to be overseeing the ad business as we embark upon this. How has technology altered the way you do your work? Oh, yeah. I mean, just taking a step back, the media landscape has changed drastically over the last, let's say, 13 years or so. You know, back in 2012, it was all about cable and broadcast TV. It was all about satellite trucks and fixed locations. And for me, it was all about trying to get as much money on to monetize those mediums as possible.

9:30Now, you know, whether it's podcasts or newsletters or streaming or linear and cable or events, like there are a million ways of reaching our audience. And the landscape has just gotten so much more splintered and fragmented. So now what we have to do is really meet audiences where they're at. And for me, I have to monetize all of those formats and platforms and mechanisms in a way that actually drives the business. So that's, I'd say, the biggest change. And with that, also, we're becoming a digital-first, direct-to-consumer brands. And so we're creating these standalone products that actually reach audiences across every screen device and platform and reaches them where they're at.

10:15And that gets really interesting when you're dealing with marketers like T-Mobile and delivering their messages in new and innovative ways. I'm curious about the first conversations you had with T-Mobile. What was the problem that you defined that you wanted to solve? And how did you see slicing as fitting into this solution that you imagined? So as we embark upon this digital transformation and to basically transform CNN into a brand of the future, we're trying to define the future of news. And so with that, our reporters really need to stay connected, you know, reporting live from a natural disaster or, you know, at a moment of celebration like New Year's Eve or Super Bowl or July 4th or Thanksgiving or whatever that might be.

11:02or if they're in far-flung places where there's not a good signal, we need to ensure that our audience gets delivered the information that matters most to them and does not skip a beat. And so as we're embarking upon this digital transformation, it only made sense to outfit our reporters with the best technology in the palm of their hands to ensure that they're capturing that information as it happens in real time. And, you know, with breaking news, you're either leading or you're following. And, you know, for us to have a competitive edge in this digital transformation that we're going upon, it was critical for us to have a trusted partner that was able to capture news reliably so that we don't break trust with our audiences and deliver what they need.

11:49Well, I want you to jump in here because one of the interesting things here is that, as I, when you're speaking, Guy, I've been a journalist my whole life. I'm well aware of all the limitations of the various technologies I've used over the years. But the thing is, I have no insight into what is possible technologically, right? I just know what I've been given. So I'm just curious, how does the process of educating a company like CNN into what's technologically possible work, did someone at T-Mobile call a guy up and say, hey, do you guys realize there's this thing out there that you may not have heard of?

12:24I'm curious about how knowledge gets diffused in these marketplaces. What I loved about working with them is, like any large enterprise, it's a little bit of prove it to me and show it to me. And so when Supermobile hadn't yet even launched, when we started talking to CNN, but we knew that frontline journalism was such an incredible use case for all the reasons the guy articulated that, hey, when breaking news is happening, the camera that you have and the video camera that you have in your pocket on your phone may be that first way of that breaking news, making it to the audience. And so we sat down and we were having a conversation about how slicing would enable, even in moments of congestion and moments of emergency, would give them the intelligent adaptive connectivity that they need for their frontline to be able to stream, as well as all of those, the big moments like 4th of July, New Year's Eve, etc.

13:21And so what happened was they said, okay, prove it. So we gave them X number of test devices. They embedded them with video crews and news crews around the country. And then they put it to the stress test. They went and ran side-by-side compares. Oh, really? You did it like a test? Oh, yeah. We did a test before we embarked upon this. We needed to make sure that the technology actually worked. Tell me a little bit about the test. I mean, we had engineers and field journalists using the technology and just, you know, seeing whether the signal was stronger than some of the other partners that we work with, telecommunications companies.

14:00And it proved out. Who shall remain nameless. Well, yes. We won't name their names. But it proved to work and it proved to be steady. And it gave our tech and product teams the confidence and our newsroom to actually say, let's embark upon this. Let's outfit all of our field journalists with this technology because it's going to be critical in our news gathering and news reporting. So it's like you're at some event and there's some, I can imagine there are moments when there's 100 reporters in a scene and the networks might be incredibly congested. Yeah, it was both about congestion and areas with lots of demand.

14:39Like New York City was one of the areas where the tests were happening. It's important not only from a journalism standpoint, but it was important for a T-Mobile and CNN relationship standpoint. It allowed us to deepen our relationship because it's a win-win-win. And it kind of sets a blueprint for how we want to be working with T-Mobile more in the future. You know, the satellite to sell security that our journalists have while they're out in the field enables them to do the job that they need to do better than anybody else. Our audience wins because they don't skip a beat. And then T-Mobile gets the opportunity to show up in a very meaningful and authentic way, in a trusted way, where the audience knows that, you know, what they're seeing right now is powered by this incredible technology.

15:22And so it's something that, you know, we think is a never-been-done-before watershed and really demonstrative of where we want to go as a company moving forward. I remember when I was starting out as a reporter to the Washington Post, I was given a, what was called a Trash 80, a Radio Shack. Like, calling it a computer is way too flattering. And it had two cups. Do you remember the cups? You ran to a payphone and you put the cups on each of the two things. Oh, my gosh. And then you use tones. And if you were covering a big event, there'd be like three payphones, like half a mile away. And then there would be a line of reporters waiting to use that.

16:04And if you were trying to beat the competition, you just wouldn't leave the pay phone. Yeah. You'd just stick there and make the New York Times wait. I worked for the Washington Post. Malcolm, you're dating yourself. This technology allows our reporters to literally have a satellite truck in their hands. So they're not dealing with cups and strings and waiting on lines for other reporters to finish. I'll give you a real example that was playing out at F1, which is the photographers from any news outlets. Their workflow was they would take pictures and then they would hand their SD card, the memory card from inside the camera, to a runner.

16:38The runner would then literally run to somewhere to upload the photos. What we're able to do with slicing technology is we've launched a solution that plugs directly into the camera and uses the slice and the 5G network so that in real time, every photo that's being taken is moving over file transfer protocol to an FTP site. The editors are then able to grab it, which means breaking news is able to happen even faster. And they're able to beat the competition to whatever that iconic next image will be and getting it out to the eyes everywhere. Yeah. Steve, I'm sorry. I feel we've been ignoring you.

17:18Before I get into the way Siemens Energy has worked with T-Mobile, I'm curious about your own background. I'm assuming you're an engineer. I'm an engineer, yep, originally. Yeah. And what kind of engineer? Actually, marine engineer. Interesting. How would you describe your current job with Siemens Energy? I've got a great job with Siemens Energy. So my organization, my teams, we service the power plants across the United States. Power plants, no different than your car. Every so often, they have to do periodic maintenance. We show up with a crew of people, take the turbines, the generators apart, stem to stern, inspect them.

17:59repair them, modernize them, upgrade them, and then return them to service to help power America. So last year, Siemens Energy equipment generated about 25 % of electricity used in the United States. There's over 2 ,200 units spread out across 1 ,100 sites in 48 states. 2 ,200 units? Correct. How many people work for you? In my organization? Yeah. I have about 1 ,500, and then I bring on about another 3 ,000 contractors every year. Oh, wow. Basically, if a generator goes down somewhere or a power plant goes down somewhere, you're the person who gets called. That's correct. How did you come to want to work with T-Mobile for business?

18:46Tell me how that came about. What was it they offered you that you needed? We have teams on site. So when we go to a power plant, a small event for us might be 30 people on a site for 30 days. A big event for us could be 300 people on site for six months. And it's all about that. Wait, for six? You might be on a site for as long as six months. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Over the course of that six months, what are you doing? You're essentially taking the whole thing down and going through it? Take it apart, rebuild it. There might have been some sort of damage to the equipment, waiting on other parts to show up.

19:31We've had events that have taken over a year on different sites. But for our people on site, you're kind of comparing and contrasting history. We used to have to show up with boxes and boxes of drawings and manuals. And the connectivity that we get now lets our people access our engineers globally, whether they're sitting in Germany, India, the U.S. It allows them to talk to the factories. It allows them to access drawings, process, procedure. But then it also does things like lets us run payroll. I mean, you know, it enables everything to happen because when we show up at these plants, you know, we show up office trailers, bathrooms, cranes, tools, parts.

20:14You know, none of it exists when we show up and none of it's there when we leave. And we do that 300 times a year. Yeah, yeah. So, logistically, what you're running is something incredibly complicated. So, walk me through. You've got this group of, you say, as many as 60? Oh, 300 was the hype. Yeah, potentially at a site. Yeah. So you show up and walk me through what the first couple of steps are and how this kind of connectivity would make a difference. I mean, we hire union workers. We're partnered with the UBC and hire millwrights. So first thing is sign up. Then it's go to safety training, go to site orientation training.

20:52Customer will bring the unit down, lockout tag out, make sure that all the systems are safe to work on. then take the machine apart. As the machine's coming apart, you're inspecting every piece. Is it in the condition it should be? Is it worn? Is it broken? Does it need to be replaced? Are we modernizing it? These machines are how big, Ginnis and Henson? From what I work on, on a small side, it's about 80 megawatts. On the large size, up to like 1 ,500 megawatts. So 1 ,500 megawatts power a million and a half ohms. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, there's nothing we work on that you're moving with hand.

21:29Everything's being moved with a crane. Yeah. You're dealing with a complex piece of machinery. You're a German-based company. You had to show up with boxes and boxes of manuals, and you had to be in communication with people who presumably designed the machines back in Europe. Yep. talk a little bit about the difficulties of that earlier paradigm. Going to the earliest parts of my career, if you wanted to send a picture or a sketch of what you found at the site, you actually had to send it by mail and turn it around. And then you could fax it. And then all of a sudden you could attach a digital picture to an electronic communication.

22:19And now with this technology, we can live stream in 4K and, hey, this is what I'm looking at. Do you see this? Okay, hey, I want to see from this view. And the technology just allows that real-time, regardless of where the people are sitting, collaboration as well as access to all the technical information. Yeah. What's the big payoff for you? Is it that you You can now speed up the process of doing this kind of maintenance? Absolutely. For the customer, the owner of the power plant, whether it's a utility, an independent power producer, or some sort of municipality, bringing that unit back sooner is beneficial to them.

23:02Getting my crews off-site sooner saves me money, lets me send them to another site. So it's all about the speed. And, you know, the last thing we want to be slowed down with is communicating with engineering, getting that technical answer, you know, getting that support. You know, I need whatever environment my people are working at to seem like they're sitting at headquarters and have access to all the same information. Yeah. So T-Mobile gives you now able to equip all of those technicians with essentially a dedicated slice, a Supermobile dedicated slice. Yeah, and as you can imagine, maybe unlike where people are reporting, everything that we're happening is kind of more remote.

23:44Your power plants are generally found in your city centers and your hubs. So it's that connectivity, whether it's 5G or satellite, lots of different options, but it's connecting our people to what they need. And how did you find out about Supermobile? It was kind of an initially organic conversation. They came to us and said, hey, we think we've got something for you. We're always trying to get our people that bandwidth on site. And we brought them to the problem. What can you do? And that's what started the conversation. For T-Mobile, I mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating. We start with what are our customers' pain points?

24:32And we knew with Siemens Energy, remote workforce, worker safety, efficiency were things that were incredibly important. And so as we were designing and building Supermobile as a solution, we really thought through what customers, what industries do we think will really benefit from this value proposition and these pain points that we can come smash. And this is why the conversations with CNN around frontline journalists began. This is why the conversations with CNN's energies around remote workers, working in some of the most remote parts of America began. And it was so exciting for us to see that, yeah, there was a there there and we could really help our customers win.

25:17The case studies, you've got like F1. Yeah. You've got like frontline journalists, you know, reporting on. You've got like the power plants that we can't live without. In rolling out something like this, do you choose early case studies that you think will kind of capture the attention of, I mean, there seems to be an art behind who you're. This is why I love business and B2B. I mean, just listening to these stories about solutions that are serving Americans, whether the end consumer that's receiving the electricity or the power of the energy or the person at home or on the go who's consuming news content, everything in our lives in some way is touched by business.

26:03And so absolutely, when we're building any solution, we're always thinking about, okay, what are the pain points? What are the specific verticals or industries that could benefit from this? And then because we're deep in the B2B, we're able to bring industry experts to the table internally and trusted partners and customers to have a conversation on, hey, does this really achieve and smash the pain point that you have? And so the answer is, yeah, absolutely. And it's a lot of fun too.

26:36We'll be right back.

26:46There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. An unexpected diagnosis, the sudden end of a relationship, the loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist, and my new book, The Other Side of Change, Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, is all about how we navigate these inflection points. The Other Side of Change pairs singular, real-life stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives, not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be.