Too Many Ads, Too Little Impact: Rethinking MVNO Marketing in 2025
In 1990, most marketing in telecommunications was done in-person, in-print, and in-store; the strongest brands had the strongest physical presence in the world. Over the next decade or so, the internet began to gain popularity, and the pendulum began a slow and steady swing towards digital...
Essential Tips for Customer Onboarding
Customer onboarding can make or break the success for many MVNO or IoT businesses. First impressions matter enormously—63% of customers consider the onboarding period when deciding to subscribe to a service. Moreover, a smooth onboarding process directly impacts customer retention and...
Will Big Tech Companies Become MVNOs?
The telecommunications industry is undergoing a quiet but powerful shift. Beyond the race to 5G and the growth of IoT, a new kind of disruption is taking shape: the potential entry of Big Tech into the world of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). Companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, and...
The Great Disappearing Act
Since 2009, MVNOs have – in one form or another - been a “thorn in the side” of telco operators. In the battle for ‘wholesale access’ MVNOs are really heros for breaking the MNOs monopolistic grip on their own networks. Spending valuable time and money ‘fighting the good fight’ for consumers in...
Navigating Australia’s tighter telecom regulations in 2025
The Australian Mobile Virtual Network Operator sector is thriving with market share on the rise but beneath this growth lies a seismic shift: a rapidly tightening regulatory landscape that’s reshaping how MVNOs operate in the region. From stricter consumer safeguards to mandatory cybersecurity...
MVNO Differentiators: Community and VAS brought Trump Mobile to the Market
As the number of MVNOs increases, it’s becoming evident that selling connectivity and data is the bare minimum. Both in the United States and across the world, MVNO revenue is projected to be higher in 2025 than in 2024. Why is that occurring? It’s not because companies are just lowering their...
Multihost Full MVNOs
1. What a surprise! Just before the AOTEC fair in Madrid, Vodafone Spain announced a wholesale access agreement with Silbö Telecom for both its mobile and fixed-line networks. But the real breakthrough isn’t simply the agreement with Vodafone — it’s that Silbö will become the first virtual...
Intelligent Innovation: How AI is Transforming the MVNO Landscape
The Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) model has matured into a vital force in the telecom ecosystem. Known for flexibility, agility, and innovative service offerings, MVNOs have become strong challengers to traditional mobile network operators (MNOs), particularly in niche segments. However,...
The Reality Check & Exit considerations
Most MVNOs that we meet experience four distinct stages in their first five years: Launch frenzy Growth & scaling A reality check Capital raising (or maybe an exit) As a data and AI business specialising in telco and MVNOs, Sourse has observed these phases from every angle - and that’s what we...
AI Agents: MVNOs’ New Not-So-Secret Weapon
If you're running an MVNO in 2025, you're facing a perfect storm of challenges. Customer acquisition costs are climbing whilst margins get squeezed, differentiation feels impossible in an increasingly crowded market, and scaling personalised experiences seems unattainable. Sound familiar? You're...
Inside the MVNO World: Lessons from Vienna and Miami
In the last month I had the chance to attend two major MVNO conferences: MVNOs World in Vienna and MVNO Nation USA in Miami. I went in expecting differences, but what I found were many shared goals and challenges as well. Each event had its flavor, but both left me with plenty to think about. A...
AI and the MVNO Industry – Opportunities and Perhaps Mirages
The last 5 years or so have seen a lot of buzz in the world around the advent of Artificial intelligence. This buzz was supercharged around 2022 - 2023 when OpenAI released their large language model frontend, ChatGPT. We have written industry position papers on the opportunities that are...
2G and 3G Shutdown: The beginning of a New Era?
Why 2G and 3G Are Saying Goodbye? Imagine trying to stream a high-definition video on dial-up internet. Sounds frustrating, right? That’s basically what 2G and 3G networks feel like compared to the blazing speeds of 4G and 5G. Telecom providers are shutting down 2G and 3G for a few big reasons:...
Putting MVNO own goals behind to capture old audiences in a new way
In 1986, Sir Alex Ferguson took charge of Manchester United, a club stuck in the shadows of its former greatness. His early years were a struggle, near sackings, frustrated fans and no trophies in sight. Timing wasn’t on his side; the team wasn’t ready and English football was a tough arena. By...
The Telecom Singularity: When Networks Become Self-Aware?
As a telecom SME, I spend my days thinking about bandwidth, latency, and network topologies. But as I prepare for MVNO Nation in Miami (their first USA event), my thoughts drift to more speculative territory as I know AI will continue to be a hot topic. So, what happens when the networks we build...
What’s giving telecoms an ‘edge’?
The telecommunications industry remains in a state of continuous transformation. The recent advancements of 5G, IoT and edge computing are leading this transformation across a range of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) and IoT-focused businesses in their...
Turning your MVNO into a growth machine
The MVNO roller coaster Most MVNOs that we meet experience four distinct stages in their first five years: Launch frenzy Growth & scaling A reality check Capital raising (or maybe an exit) As a data and AI business specialising in telco and MVNOs, We have observed these phases from every...
The Many Meanings of Enterprise Connectivity for MVNOs
Enterprise connectivity is a large market, if not the largest market in the world; Kaleido’s IoT forecast projects there to be 6.7 billion cellular IoT connections worldwide by 2030. The vast majority of these will be used by enterprises, and are a strong opportunity for MVNOs who can provide a...
8 Obvious and Not-So-Obvious Ways to Reduce Churn as an MVNO
There’s no use trying to fill up a bathtub when the drain is open. Similarly, there’s little use in attempting to acquire large numbers of customers as an MVNO when your churn is out of control. So, let’s review some obvious and less obvious ways that an MVNO can go about reducing their churn. If...
Regulators, Information, and MVNOs: Their Impact on the Business
We're approaching the one-year anniversary of the first post Are MVNOs taking AI seriously enough? by our dear friend James Gray—a contributor to this community that we’ve all built together. His most recent post focuses on the integration of MVNOs into financial services, retail, and utilities, a...
MVNOs World will make you question your strategy and get it right. Here’s how.
This year’s MVNO’s World in Vienna will bring together MVNOs from around the globe. The event has long acted as an anchor in the MVNO diary. A point to exchange ideas, debate changes and strike commercial deals. This year’s meet will be no different and will cover perhaps one of the most...
The Invisible Burden: The Impact of Fraud Impacts on MVNO Financials
MVNOs operate on razor-thin margins, with leaders focused on managing acquisition costs, reducing churn, and tackling network fraud. Yet, one critical threat often flies under the radar and can have a huge impact on MVNO financials: Payments Fraud. Fraud-related payment failures—due to false...
Saying yes to the home grown agent and AI combo is putting MVNO’s ahead of the telco pack.
“Computer says no.” The iconic 2004 Little Britain skit with its biting satire about a terrible travel agent and automation’s cold indifference had audiences around the globe wincing in recognition. Two decades on, computers are saying “yes” at a pace we’ve never seen before thanks to AI that...
MVNOs: From Underdogs to Global Hunters
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of running BSS/OSS platforms for some of the biggest names in telecom, including Vodafone and Frontier Communications. Today, as the founder and CEO of a SaaS/Services company, I’m seeing firsthand how the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) model is...