Guest Blogs
From discount to differentiation: the rise of brand-affinity MVNOs
In the last 10 years, the number of MVNOs has grown 70% globally, reaching more than 2100. At the end of 2025, there were 2.6 MVNOs per MNO (on average). The 2100+ figure includes different categories of MVNOs such as consumer, IoT, roaming, migrant, business, and more. Around 10% of MVNOs are…
eSIM Orchestration: Does SGP.32 shift the role of the MVNO?
2026 marks the year where commercialisation of fully-compliant SGP.32 (eSIM IoT Specification) eSIM solutions come to market. After several years of development, testing and certification eSIM within the IoT ecosystem has now, in theory at least, been decoupled from the MNO which historically…
Why limit ourselves to “M”
Converged Service Provider – path to profitability for MVNOs Introduction The era of digital transformation contains multiple waves – beginning with cloud and mobility at the start a decade ago and more recently with AI & Machine Learning. In the current wave, converged connectivity services…
Breaking the Mass-Market Telecom B2B Illusion
Introduction The telecom sector is facing an internal execution crisis. Traditional B2C revenue is flat, and standard corporate SME segments cannot support the massive Capex we have already sunk into 5G Standalone (5G SA) and edge compute infrastructures. Growth sits in asset-heavy industrial…
Moving up the MVNO maturity curve
When, why and how to evaluate the Migration from Light into Full MVNO The majority of MVNO projects start around a customer segment, a commercial idea, a distribution model or an existing asset. Those projects need to reach the market fast, without unnecessary complexity, and are typically not…
Why is Telecom Marketing missing My generation?
I’m a young professional who has been working in the MVNO industry for the past two years. I know that many of the people reading this have been in the business far longer than I have and understand it infinitely better. But there is one thing I do bring to the table: I’m the type of customer many…
Fixed-mobile convergence, the long-forgotten one?
I have revisited many blog posts published over the past few months, and even further back, and have been surprised to realize that we had not paid enough attention to the issue that matters most to mobile virtual network operators today: preserving margins and retaining customers. There is a…
Data Hygiene in MVNOs: Keeping CRM Clean for Better Decisions
Practical Strategies, Tools, and Tips for Mobile Virtual Network Operators Introduction: Why Data Hygiene Matters for MVNOs For Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), data is the backbone of customer relationship management (CRM) and business operations. Clean, accurate, and up-to-date data…
An MVNO Without a Phone Plan
When most people hear the term MVNO, they picture a familiar business model. A company buys network access, creates a few mobile plans, puts its name on a SIM card, and tries to convince consumers to switch carriers either on a wide spectrum or in a particular niche. That model is not…
Nobody inherits a fractured tech stack it turns out they’ve mostly commissioned them.
You may need to read that twice, I’ll wait. You’ve seen the slide, I sure as hell have because I’ve built plenty of them. Boxes, arrows, a spaghetti of integration points rendered in angry red. It’s the standard opener for anyone selling transformation to a large established tier one telco. That’s…
Securing Connected Experiences Through Network Intelligence
International travel has become a largely digital experience. Whether it is activating an eSIM before a flight, receiving an OTP to access a banking app overseas or joining a video call moments after landing, customers expect mobile services to work seamlessly wherever they are. Behind that…
What’s the Plan? Is it time branded mobile gave customers more options to pay?
I heard about an interesting discussion the other day. Initially it sounded a little counter intuitive, but the more I thought about it the more I appreciated the value of questioning the status quo and wondered if we do it enough as an industry? Take buy now pay later options which have exploded…
MVNOs versus MNOs: seven areas where customer behaviour is significantly different
In the last 10 years, the number of MVNOs has grown 70% globally, reaching more than 2100. As the consumer market is a major focus for MVNOs, analysing and comparing the behaviour of MVNO and MNO customers (across major mobile markets) offers useful insights than can be used to inform business…
From MVNO to MVNE the evolution most founders forget to plan for
When you launch an MVNO, you spend a surprising amount of time thinking about how it ends. Can it become a cash-cow with automated processes and low involvement from our part? What’s the exit? Who’d buy us? What’s the multiple? That’s sensible. But the most common scenario that anyone rarely plans…
Engineering Decides Your Margin
Where do MVNO’s margins really come from? Most people point to wholesale rates, marketing, and customer acquisition cost. They all matter. But I feel the bigger number is in the packet core. It is what the core costs you to carry one subscriber. And that is set by engineering choices, made long…
Value Creation in the Platform Economy with Fintech
Introduction Fintech-telecom convergence is a major growing trend – leading Telecom operators are unlocking significant fintech revenue by evolving from basic connectivity providers into digital ecosystem hubs. Besides wallets and mobile money, key growth areas include embedded finance, super-app…
The New MVNO Playbook
Winning the Digital Household Through Subscription Bundles and Broadband Partnerships For more than two decades, success in the MVNO industry has been measured by a familiar set of metrics: subscriber growth, net additions, ARPU, and churn. The playbook was straightforward. Launch a compelling…
Can 5G Standalone Boost MVNO Capabilities?
5G Standalone has been hailed bringing a wider breadth of 5G functionality into networks; the full flexibility of a 5G SBA (software-based architecture) core enables many different forms of service and network customisation which were not possible with the EPC-based 5G NSA architecture. This could…
Controlling your connectivity: a strategic choice
An increasing number of devices are now permanently connected via mobile networks. From smart energy meters and medical sensors to lorries, buses, and drones. Each relies, to a greater or lesser extent, on a stable data connection. Historically, many IoT projects primarily focused on the…
Automotive Connectivity in 2026: The Conversation Has Moved Past the SIM
In conversation with Stéphane Lagresle – Host, Automotive Storytelling Podcast The connected vehicle market is no longer a forecast. Infrastructure decisions that will define automotive connectivity for the next decade are being made in procurement rooms right now, and the gap between what…
Is your business paying a complexity tax?
Is your business paying a complexity tax? Probably. So now is the time to start unpicking the Frankenstack. Our team has just landed back from the annual pilgrimage to the land of canals, cyclists and smoke filled coffee shops with the clear view this year’s MVNOs World 2026 had a new and…
MVNOs World in Amsterdam was a masterclass in collaboration
If I had to sum up MVNOs World 2026 in a word, it would be collaboration. It was abundantly evident as hundreds of people came together in Amsterdam to debate and find answers to the big issues facing MVNOs. The industry’s exceptional ability to bring together different specialisms to overcome…
The Velocity Dividend
Article 2 from the Series: Data, AI, Velocity and Value Topics covered: The Intelligence-Execution Paradox Beware of Pilot Purgatory! The Danger of the IT Backlog Probabilistic Guesswork vs Deterministic Certainty The Velocity Dividend: Turning Certainty into P&L Performance Certainty in a…
Mobile is the new co-brand
Hearing that phrase from one of APAC’s most credentialed and respected loyalty consultants this week crystallised a thesis our team had been carrying around for the past three years. Not because the idea was new to us, but because someone from outside telco had said it plainly. For years, we had…