In 2020, Jefferson County's Innovation Team conducted an analysis on county cellular service and identified an opportunity to significantly reduce annual operating costs. With help from several departments, the team organized comprehensive network testing and found that T-Mobile’s network was competitive with AT&T and Verizon across the county. Departments were impressed by the competitive coverage and lower costs, and made the decision to start migrating their devices to T-Mobile in 2021.
T-Mobile worked with Jefferson County to convert devices, buy back old devices, and transition accounts for employees. By May 2022, over 1,200 devices across many departments had been converted. This will generate savings of over $1.5 Million over the next five years. The project is expected to wrap up by the end of August 2022 with the migration of the Sheriff's Office and their 400 devices. At the conclusion of the project, we anticipate savings of $2.1 Million over five years.
Jefferson County's migration to T-Mobile and the resulting cost-savings were recognized with an Achievement Award from the National Association of Counties (NACo). The awards honor innovative county government programs that strengthen services for residents and help departments operate more efficiently. To find out more about the award, visit the NACo site.
Through this project, departments found ways to reduce costs and maintain quality service. The Innovation Team looks forward to collaborating with them again in the future and generating even more efficiencies and savings for the county. A big shout-out to Marlin McDaniel and Ericka Bremer for leading this effort!
Learn more about Innovation at Jeffco and read more of our success stories.