Tropical living, Puerto Rican style, is a world of inviting beaches, hospitable hearts and a lush rainforest acoustically backdropped with its signature coquí frogs. Unseen, but present everywhere, is an advanced 5G cellular network silently supporting Puerto Rico’s vibrant culture and cohesive community with extraordinary digital connectivity. The technology of choice is T-Mobile, and its prosperity in Puerto Rico and with the larger Latino customer base has been fueled by the leadership of T-Mobile’s vice president of the company’s eastern region and Puerto Rico, Jorge Martel.
“Technology is the how,” Martel explains. “But the why: How do you make people’s lives better?” Identifying that why—and acting on it—is the crux of his T-Mobile success.
While the island (technically an archipelago) is home to roughly 3.2 million residents, the Puerto Rican spirit is intimately connected to the U.S. mainland, which is home to 6.1 million Puerto Ricans. It’s more than a figure of speech. Puerto Ricans, like many other Latinos, use T-Mobile’s technology to enhance their lives, pursue opportunities and stay connected to their culture. Martel sits at the center of this convergence, overseeing 9,000 employees and over 1,000 stores extending from Maine to South Carolina as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. At T-Mobile, Latinos get a company that, under Martel’s guidance, is shaped around their many-layered needs and experiences in meaningful, impactful ways.
A Global Role Model
When Hurricane Maria brazenly slammed into Puerto Rico in 2017, the storm devastated its infrastructure. Martel, who was living on the island, felt the impact to his core. The son of a Cuban immigrant, Martel was born in Puerto Rico and spent his childhood there before going to school stateside, then returning in his role with T-Mobile. In one day, Maria effectively isolated Puerto Rico, cutting off external food and supplies and communication.
For Martel, it was a defining moment. After ensuring T-Mobile employees were safe, he focused on reestablishing connectivity. T-Mobile chartered the first plane to land on the island post-Maria. Filled with technicians dedicated to rebuilding the network, the moment marked an astonishing comeback.
T-Mobile emerged as an exceptional standout, powering the island’s resilience and growth with its world-class 5G cellular network. “Puerto Rico goes beyond a thriving business,” Martel says. “Today, Puerto Rico now has a leading world-class wireless infrastructure.” Indeed, T-Mobile is the top wireless provider for Puerto Rican customers and businesses.
T-Mobile’s successful deployment has earned accolades. “In Puerto Rico, we have been ranked the best network by UCLA, and in Opensignal, we have been ranked the best pretty much worldwide,” Martel elaborates.
More than technology, that cellular infrastructure is a direct line to inclusion and enablement, as T-Mobile is the only national carrier with a presence in Puerto Rico. All rate plans include the entire U.S. and Puerto Rico, and customers can travel back and forth with complete seamless coverage in T-Mobile’s high-quality network.
Speeding Up Opportunities
The transformative power of 5G connectivity is redefining our lifestyles and society. With 5G, you can send and receive more data without latency headaches, that aggravating buffering period that forces you to wait for content to upload or send. Seamless video conferencing, using transportation apps, making restaurant reservations, real-time traffic and weather updates, app-driven banking and commerce, AI tools, online classrooms, entertainment, streaming—the list goes on and on.
T-Mobile also has a layering technology, allowing it to build and dedicate a part of its network to certain users, with exciting applications. Emergency responders can access prompt and accurate information critical to saving lives. “You can have a drone sending videos, looking at a disaster site and immediately getting in touch with the different authorities,” Martel explains.
For commerce, layering creates a seamless vendor experience at large-scale events. T-Mobile’s sponsorship of the Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix is a vivid case study. All point-of-sale transactions occurred on the T-Mobile wireless network, ensuring reliable, swift purchases even amid the digital congestion that comes from 300,000 individuals converging in one spot. Martel foresees other verticals such as medicine, education and self-driving technology all benefiting from T-Mobile’s layering technology.
High-performance connectivity empowers opportunities, but there’s a catch. It must be accessible. Remote, rural and geographically isolated areas often exist on the edge of the grid where reliable access to the network is not always attainable, putting those residents and businesses at a disadvantage. Affordability is another barrier. Martel takes the connectivity gap very seriously.
“For us, it’s important that availability [is] not limited to where you live, and it’s not limited to the household income that you have,” Martel says. “So, we have really focused on underprivileged areas and ensuring that we have 5G for all.... It’s a great impact that can happen all across the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Martel is especially excited about the launch of T-Satellite, enabling uninterrupted coverage through a network of 400 satellites. The implications for access in remote and disaster areas is a game changer. During the 2025 Texas floods, Martel says over 93,000 people connected to the satellite, sending 287,000 messages.
Interpreting the Cultural Snapshot
A 2025 report, Conectados: U.S. Latino Mobile Trends Report, reveals that Latinos represent more than 25% of T-Mobile’s customer base. The report highlights the savvy mobile habits of Latinos, reflecting their bicultural and bilingual fluency through regularly connecting with family and friends across international borders. Peer-to-peer payments through cash apps, leveraging AI tools for work and personal tasks, and using educational apps all describe a population keen on financial flexibility, career growth and personal development. Entertainment habits also reveal distinct preferences in content consumption, with 37% enjoying bilingual content and 46% often turning to music or entertainment related to their culture or heritage.
Martel understands what these trends represent. For Latinos, he says that mobile technology is more than a tool, but a lifeline for connection, opportunity and cultural expression. In his role, he is the galvanizing point person who turns these insights into actions. As a self-described team person, it’s a position that reflects his leadership philosophy. He is also inherently humble.
“So I’ve learned [that], I would say most folks I’ve had in my teams are a lot more proficient than I am in many areas, and I’m blessed to have them trust me,” he says. “I have orchestrated how we move forward, and I just help maybe provide some clarity, provide some common ground and prioritize what should be done.”
Leading with humility, he recognizes the inherent value in team dynamics. For him, the team’s strength is not important. He says he provides direction for team members to find answers and reach conclusions, while maintaining his openness to growth and learning from new perspectives. It’s a comprehensive approach that coalesces effort and encourages creativity.
“You help define objectives, and then you provide the context as to why you need to provide those objectives,” he says.
The Human Connection
True to his efforts to use technology to improve people’s lives, Martel’s priorities have sparked several substantive initiatives:
1. Friday Night 5G Lights, a funding program that supports high school football programs, entities known to coalesce communities and often found in predominantly Hispanic towns.
2. Hometown Grants, a $25 million funding project supporting small towns with populations less than 50,000. One such project, LaunchVozNorfolk in Norfolk, Nebraska, is installing multilingual signage at key public parks and providing interpretive iPads to first responders, city administration buildings, and the public library to enhance communication and safety for non-English-speaking residents.
3. Project 10Million, which delivers internet connectivity to underserved student households. To date, Project 10Million has connected more than 6.3 million students to the internet and provided nearly $7.3 billion in critical tech tools and services. Efforts also extend to T-Mobile marketing and services.
Stores, signage, advertisements, commercials and customer care (including chatbots) are bilingual and adapted to a region’s distinct cultural pulses.
Martel is extremely proud to be part of the company that Latinos choose and recognize as a good value. As for himself? Aside from using T-Mobile for work, 5G connectivity indulges his enthusiasm for music, mountain biking adventures and finding hidden restaurant gems to satisfy his inner foodie. There’s one more. Martel plays mobile strategy video game Clash of Clans. “I pretend it’s a secret,” he says, “but my daughters catch me all the time.”
Image courtesy of Jorge Martel.
This article was first published in the July/August 2026 issue of SUCCESS Magazine. Get your copy here.
