Major League Baseball opened the 2026 season with a technological first: the Automated Ball-Strike or ABS Challenge System, powered by T-Mobile’s private 5G network, is now deployed across all 29 U.S. ballparks.

While headlines focus on umpire challenges and strike zones, the real story for information technology professionals lies beneath the surface — in the network infrastructure that enables split-second decisions in environments where failure simply isn’t an option. In corporate IT, we have become accustomed to “best-effort” networking, but there are situations, increasingly in this AI-first world, where “good enough” is not nearly good enough.

The ABS system allows batters, pitchers and catchers to challenge ball-and-strike calls by tapping their helmet or cap, triggering an instant review via Hawk-Eye camera technology that tracks pitch location with millimeter precision. Each team receives two challenges per game, with additional challenges awarded in extra innings if the original allotment is exhausted. During spring training testing, the average challenge took just 13.8 seconds to resolve, with 4.1 challenges per game. That speed is possible only because of the network architecture T-Mobile built specifically for this use case.

Why private 5G was the only option

According to Scott Jacka, T-Mobile’s senior director of technology development strategy, the decision to deploy a dedicated private 5G network rather than rely on public cellular or Wi-Fi infrastructure was driven by three critical factors: local infrastructure integration, latency requirements and reliability guarantees.

“Major League Baseball owns the infrastructure on site at each ballpark,” Jacka explained during a recent analyst briefing. “They’ve got 12 Hawk-Eye cameras that go around the park. Those all connect back to a centralized room in the stadium. There’s processing happening locally, and there are operators running the game of baseball who are connected up in the press box.”

This local workflow architecture made a private network essential. T-Mobile deployed dedicated Ericsson EP 5G cores at each ballpark, connecting directly to MLB’s existing infrastructure via stadium cabling that MLB already owns and operates. This approach allowed T-Mobile to complete installations in about two days per stadium — a timeline that would have been impossible if crews had to run entirely new cabling through massive stadium environments.

The network uses 20 megahertz of T-Mobile’s N41 spectrum (2.5-gigahertz band) carved out specifically for MLB, with each stadium broadcasting a unique Public Land Mobile Network or PLMN identifier. This ensures that only authorized MLB devices can connect to the network, preventing interference from the tens of thousands of fans on T-Mobile’s public network in the same venue.

CBRS wasn’t an option

One of the most instructive decisions for IT professionals evaluating private network deployments is T-Mobile’s decision to avoid the Citizens Broadband Radio Service spectrum, despite its growing popularity for enterprise private networks.

Jacka cited multiple reasons for this decision. First, CBRS may pose reliability challenges in markets where military operations could cause interference — San Diego’s Petco Park, located near major Navy operations, was specifically cited as a risk factor. Second, CBRS typically operates at lower power levels than licensed spectrum. However, the decisive factor was ecosystem maturity. “There’s really not an ecosystem for 5G standalone in CBRS,” Jacka explained. “We would have been in something like NSA or just CBRS, and that didn’t necessarily make sense to us for the reliability objectives we were trying to work on with MLB.”

This is a critical lesson for enterprise IT practitioners. Emerging technologies and spectrum allocations may offer cost advantages, but proven, licensed spectrum with mature device ecosystems often delivers better outcomes for mission-critical applications.

Performance targets and device ecosystem

T-Mobile’s network targets approximately 100 megabits per second of downlink cell throughput — more than sufficient for the system’s primary use case, which is predominantly downlink traffic. The network supports iPads in dugouts and bullpens, where players study real-time performance data, and laptops in the press box operated by MLB staff who run the ABS system.

The device strategy also evolved during deployment. When the project began in early 2023, iPads accepted physical SIM cards. By the time of full deployment, Apple had transitioned to eSIM-only devices, requiring T-Mobile to adapt its provisioning approach. This highlights an often-overlooked aspect of enterprise network planning: Device ecosystems evolve rapidly, and infrastructure must be flexible enough to accommodate change without major rearchitecture.

Deployment lessons: From days to hours

T-Mobile’s deployment journey offers valuable insights into how enterprises can accelerate complex infrastructure projects through iterative learning. The first ballpark installation, at a college tournament at Houston’s stadium in March 2023, took several days and required significant on-site engineering. By the time of the final installations across 29 major league and two minor league ballparks, the team had refined the process to about two days per venue.

“The first time we took that out, it took us a little longer to set up,” Jacka acknowledged. “Through all the experience we’ve accumulated, the barriers are getting smaller and smaller. We’ve got a pretty good recipe for that.” This learning curve underscores a broader lesson for IT organizations: Pilot projects and controlled rollouts aren’t just risk-mitigation strategies; they’re opportunities to build deployment expertise that dramatically improves efficiency at scale.

Operational simplification through abstraction

One challenge Jacka identified is helping customers with traditional IT backgrounds adapt to wireless network operations. T-Mobile addresses this through its T Platform management system, which provides simplified views of network performance, device provisioning, alarms and system health, without requiring customers to master every detail of 5G architecture.

“Instead of trying to learn everything about a private network, they can get a more polished view that highlights the information that’s really critical to them,” Jacka said.

This abstraction layer is crucial for enterprise adoption of private 5G. IT teams shouldn’t need to become cellular network experts to deploy and manage private networks — they need intuitive tools that surface actionable intelligence while hiding unnecessary complexity.

The broader enterprise opportunity

Though MLB’s ABS system is a high-profile deployment, T-Mobile sees similar opportunities across multiple verticals. Jacka cited strong interest in government, oil and gas, manufacturing and broadcasting — especially as broadcasters face the loss of unlicensed spectrum they’ve traditionally relied on.

Each of these sectors shares requirements with MLB: local processing and data workflows, reliability requirements that exceed what public networks or Wi-Fi can provide, and latency-sensitive applications where milliseconds matter.

For enterprise IT pros, the MLB deployment shows that private 5G has matured from proof-of-concept to production-ready infrastructure for mission-critical applications. The key is aligning the technology with use cases that have clear requirements for local processing, deterministic performance and dedicated spectrum — exactly the criteria that made private 5G the right choice for calling balls and strikes in America’s pastime.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

Image: MLB