T-Mobile Targets Enterprises Through FreeMove Alliance

The FreeMove Alliance — a group comprised of mobile carriers Deutsche Telekom, Orange, TeliaSonera and Telecom Italia Group, and with footprint of 59 countries and more than 404 million customers — announced that T-Mobile is climbing on board, enabling the alliance to extend its offerings to customers travelling in the United States.

In recent years, the alliance has seen an increase in requests for international services. It offers roaming voice and data support, centralised services for fleet managers, VPN support, and centralised reports that offer visibility into spending, Fabien Gustafsson, general manager of the FreeMove Alliance, told eWEEK.

Preferential Pricing And Services

“It was important for us to have a strong partner in the US, and we will work together to respond to customers… and offer consistent services across the United States and Europe,” said Gustafsson, adding that T-Mobile USA works on GSM-based technology, like its European counterparts, making it a good fit. US carriers Verizon and Sprint, conversely, are based on CDMA.

In a statement he added, “The addition of T-Mobile to the FreeMove Alliance footprint will provide real value to businesses operating on both sides of the Atlantic. FreeMove customers will benefit from a dedicated global account management approach that includes European and US sales resources, harmonised products and services beyond European borders, and aligned sales, bid and implementation management.”

Frank Sickinger, director of multinational corporations at T-Mobile USA, said the move will enable T-Mobile to offer preferential pricing and services to Alliance customers, whether they are in an Alliance country or not.

Unlike US competitor AT&T — which recently purchased assets from inCompass Wireless in an effort to expand its enterprise-mobility solutions and professional services expertise — T-Mobile USA tends to be perceived as a consumer-focused carrier, Sickinger admitted.

“One of the areas that we see as a primary opportunity for growth is the business space,” Sickinger told eWEEK. Despite this perception, he added, “we have millions of enterprise customers” including more than four million connected to business or government contracts.

“It’s very important that we capture more corporate market share, and the FreeMove Alliance is a big part of that,” he said.

Recent news that PC maker Dell plans to transition its employees from BlackBerry handsets to Dell smartphones included mention that Dell is in talks with T-Mobile about offering company-wide support, instead of individual user contracts.

Sickinger said he couldn’t comment on the Dell situation but added that, with enterprise customers, T-Mobile “looks at their total populations” to find “the right kind of solution for as large a population as possible.”

T-Mobile USA has also announced the addition of 137,000 customers in the last quarter, bringing its total to 33.6 million. By contrast, during the same quarter, Sprint added 644,000 wireless subscribers, Verizon added a million and AT&T added 2.6 million.

Psychologically, T-Mobile has jumped ahead of its larger competitors by deciding to call its HSPA+ service 4G and announcing that it now has the nation’s “largest 4G network” — another benefit as it grows its reputation as an internationally minded, enterprise-geared operation.