At T-Mobile, listening to customers is the single most important thing we do. As the leader of T-Mobile for Business, I have the honor of speaking to businesses of all sizes and spanning all types of industries. Through these conversations, I’ve learned about their pain points and how they’ve disrupted their industries to overcome them. This has offered me some incredible insights and learnings that I want to share with fellow business leaders who are fighting for survival against incredible odds.

What’s the news: Today T-Mobile is officially launching Project 10Million, an unprecedented $10.7B initiative aimed at delivering internet connectivity to millions of underserved student households at no cost to them. Partnering with school districts across the country, the program offers free wireless hotspots, free high-speed data and access to laptops and tablets, at-cost. And as the COVID-19 pandemic makes remote learning the new norm for millions of students across the U.S., the Un-carrier is expanding Project 10Million to offer more data options, including unlimited, for school districts to pass on to eligible student households at no cost to them.

Why it matters: Even before the pandemic, more than 9 million of America’s 56 million school-age kids did not have access to reliable internet and could not complete after-school assignments. This critical homework gap has tremendous short- and long-term impacts: lower test scores, lower grades and limited opportunities after graduation. Now, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented 50 million students are learning remotely. Those without reliable internet connectivity will face an even bigger schoolwork gap as they are unable to participate in any type of online classroom learning.

Who it’s for: Unconnected students trying to keep up in school, parents who watch their kids struggle because they can’t afford internet access, and the teachers who are tackling the everyday challenge of teaching kids who can’t get connected at home.

As wildfires unfold across Northern California, we are keeping a close eye on any network impacts and our teams are ready to respond. Our thoughts are with impacted communities.

Our network is holding up well and is experiencing very minimal impacts from fire damage or power outages. Our engineering teams continue to actively monitor and optimize our network to minimize customer interruptions.

Given the unpredictable nature of wildfires, we also encourage our customers to make a few preparations:

We touch tons of surfaces a day, from that screen we sign to pay for lunch at a food truck to the stubborn office elevator button we need to press 10 times. But we touch nothing as often as we touch our phones.