Light Reading
Mike Dano
April 24, 2025
Verizon on Thursday announced its new Frontline Network Slice, which the company said will use 5G standalone (SA) technology to slice off a dedicated chunk of its network resources for public safety customers.
The company said the first implementation of the technology will target connected vehicles.
“Our Frontline Network Slice – Connected Vehicle allows first responders to access powerful in-vehicle connectivity, providing an enhanced mobile working environment with dedicated network resources. This will help ensure that mission-critical communications are available to first responders,” the company touted in a brochure for the offering.
The company noted that its connected vehicle slice only works through Ericsson Cradlepoint R980 routers.
Interestingly, Verizon is also offering the slicing service in “select” markets. The company listed 29 such markets – from Los Angeles and San Francisco in California to Chicago, Salt Lake City, Denver and Miami – where its offering will work over its 5G Ultra Wideband (UW) network.
In response to questions from Light Reading, a Verizon representative said the company’s list of available markets isn’t exhaustive, and that they are just the larger markets where Verizon Frontline Network Slice is now available. The representative said the company will be expanding availability to more large markets in the future.
Finally, Verizon said its slicing offering will not cost extra. Eligible public safety agencies will have access to plans including the Verizon Frontline Network Slice at the same cost as the operator’s current 5G UW plans.
The details
Verizon has been hinting at its interest in network slices for public safety users for some time.
“We will be continuing to work with our public safety partners to innovate with them,” Maggie Hallbach, the president of Verizon’s Frontline business, told Light Reading in 2023. Frontline is the brand Verizon has applied to its public safety offerings.
In her 2023 comments, Hallbach said drone communications is an example of the type of application that could make use of Verizon’s network slices. Such gadgets require speedy, low-latency services alongside encrypted connections.
And then, in 2024, Verizon disclosed a 5G network slicing public safety field demonstration in Phoenix, Arizona.
Verizon’s work on the topic accelerated toward the end of last year. That’s when the company announced the launch of “Enhanced Video Calling,” powered by network slicing, for Apple iPhones.
Network slicing requires SA 5G network technology. Widely considered the “true” version of 5G, SA eliminates the need for a 4G anchor network and supports technologies like Voice over 5G New Radio (VoNR) and network slicing. It has proven difficult to deploy, to say the least.
Indeed, Verizon initially said it would launch standalone 5G in 2020. Some in the industry thought it did so in 2022. But the company said at the end of 2023 that it was still testing the technology and that it was not yet commercially available.
The competition
Verizon’s move toward network slicing for public safety users follows similar efforts by T-Mobile.
T-Mobile, for its part, launched the SA version of 5G in 2022 via a converged, cloud-native 4G/5G core from Cisco. The operator recently put its telco cloud into the Red Hat OpenShift platform.
Following that launch, T-Mobile has toyed with various network slices for video calling and security applications.
The company then launched its T-Priority 5G network slicing service for first responders late last year.
In recent tests, wireless network research company Signals Research Group (SRG) found that T-Mobile’s first responder efforts are paying off. “The results show that T-Priority scores the best for overall network experience (788 points out of a possible 1,000 points), as well as having the best score for overall data experience,” SRG’s Michael Thelander wrote in a LinkedIn post about his recent tests of AT&T’s FirstNet, T-Mobile’s T-Priority and Verizon’s Frontline in New York City.
Now, T-Mobile is looking to leapfrog its competitors’ 5G QoS Identifier (5QI) with 5G slicing technology.