When asked why it’s so important for her to spread the word about T-Mobile’s new solution that provides critical support for first responders, Reva Navarro, who has had a storied military and law enforcement career, says it’s because she knows the feeling of being unable to communicate in key moments.
An Army and National Guard veteran, as well as a former captain of the New York State Police, Navarro is now an account executive on the T-Mobile for Government Public Safety team on the East Coast. She helps educate first responders in New York’s Hudson Valley area about the technology that powers T-Priority, the recently announced solution built for and with first responders. The soution brings them the unprecedented support they deserve as they serve communities every day, including nearby New York City, which has selected T-Mobile as the municipal entity major carrier to support a wide variety of mission-critical operations across the city.
“When I joined the New York State Police as a trooper, we wrote out traffic tickets by hand and made carbon copies,” Navarro says. “We just didn’t have the connectivity back then. Fast forward to now, and not only have computers been placed in vehicles, but most agencies have body cameras. Some agencies I speak with think the connectivity they have is good enough, but quickly they’re seeing that as they add devices, they require faster speeds because without it you’re going to have latencies that cause a host of problems.”
Navarro is one of about 50 retired law enforcement officers across the country on T-Mobile for Government’s Public Safety team. Looking back on her years of active duty service, she marvels at how a quick decision has had such a lasting impact.
“I can’t say that I had ever really thought about policing,” Navarro says. “Someone I knew said the state police test was that weekend and asked, ‘What do you think about signing up for it?’ I did well on the test and 11 months later, I was in the New York State Police Academy.”
While with the state police, Navarro spent time in a plethora of roles. She was a state trooper before passing the test to become a sergeant. She’s worked in the crime lab at Stewart Airport in New York’s Hudson Valley and as an investigator on the governor’s travel team. She was a lieutenant before eventually coming full circle — she transferred to Troop F, where she had started her career as a trooper, to become captain.
“I supervised 56 troopers, 10 sergeants and a lieutenant during that time, and ended up retiring after 21-plus years,” she says.
Besides her work with T-Mobile, Navarro’s dedication to her first responder career even extends into youth mentorship. While with the state police, she had the opportunity to attend the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia where she was selected for the National Academy Alumni Association. Members of this worldwide network of first responders can apply to become counselors of its youth leadership program to support the next generation law enforcement, which Navarro has done the last four years. A retirement may have sounded like an end to Navarro’s career with the New York State Police, but her experience during that time is still proving incredibly valuable to other first responders today.
“I wanted to close the chapter with the state police and then look for something else that interests me and in my background with the military, where I was actually in communications,” Navarro says. “When I heard what T-Mobile is doing, I was immediately intrigued. I explain to people that we have this Public Safety team of some 50 employees across the U.S. that are all retired from law enforcement with a wealth of knowledge and experience that other first responders can relate to.”
She says her T-Mobile team has a mix of retired officers from local and state agencies. As a result, she says, they learn from each other’s different experiences and can proficiently discuss pain points like lacking reliable connectivity among the departments they meet with.
T-Priority was designed to help solve the pain points faced by first responders including connectivity, speed and coverage and is one of the cutting-edge 5G solutions that the world has been waiting for. It features the nation’s first network slice for first responders, enabled by T-Mobile’s 5G standalone network. T-Priority brings agencies of all sizes more capacity, faster.
The slice acts like an expert guide, always directing network traffic to ensure first responders have the best possible experience, even in times of extreme congestion. It makes sure they get lower latency and faster 5G speeds more consistently for data-intensive communications tools by giving them up to five times the network resources of the average user.
“Staying connected when seconds matter is something that we need to take seriously,” says Navarro. “I hope there’s never a large incident that our first responders must go to, but if there is and they have an issue with communications, I fear what could happen. We’re here to protect and serve, and the community is expecting us to know what to do when an emergency strikes.”
Navarro says in addition to the network slice, T-Mobile’s support for first responders through T-Priority is equally important. The company’s expert customer support team is ready 24/7 to ensure agencies of all sizes are supported every day through regular operations, disasters, public safety incidents and critical moments nationwide.
“When I go to speak to other agencies, there’s already a rapport there and some trust because we’ve done the same job and we understand what the challenges are for policing,” Navarro says. “I explain what having a network like T-Mobile behind them can do to make their officers more efficient and safer out there. I feel comfortable speaking with them because we talk the same language. I know what they’re looking for now, but I also look to the future. It’s a learning process, educating them on all the different technologies, platforms and applications that are going to help them and streamline some of the duties they have to accomplish.”
T-Priority is a first-of-its-kind solution to keep first responders connected in the 5G era of public safety along with giving them best-in-class benefits and support. Navarro says bringing this solution to law enforcement departments is a point of pride as she has turned her retirement from civil service into a new kind of service to her police family.
“You don’t know what you don’t know until somebody tells you,” she says. “Sure, it’s nice to catch up with people that I had a relationship with before, but when I talk to them about the benefits of our network and the things we can do for them, it feels like I’m contributing in an impactful way.”
T-Mobile continues to support first responders with up to 40% off family lines with its Go5G unlimited plan — packed with benefits like the best entertainment streaming bundle in wireless with Apple TV+ on Us, Hulu on Us and Netflix on Us, in addition to free MLB.TV. Go5G customers also get free in-flight Wi-Fi across major airlines with high-speed data and texting abroad, exclusive perks with Magenta Status, deals every week through T-Mobile Tuesdays and so much more. For those who need just the basics, T-Mobile has a new Essentials plan for first responder customers, featuring the best pricing for first responders’ families compared to AT&T and Verizon on America’s leading 5G network.
And to further T-Mobile’s commitment to the first responder community, the company is proud to collaborate with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation in multi-year giving initiatives including a $2 million donation, supporting initiatives like a scholarship program for the children of fallen heroes.