Guest Blogs
Monetizing the Heavy Industrial Telecom Market
Recap of Blogs 1 & 2 So far in this series, we have established why mass-market B2B approaches fail in heavy industry (Blog 1) and how MNO/MVNOs can use non-intrusive architectural governance aligned with ISA-95 to solve the IT/OT boardroom paradox (Blog 2). With the structural and technical…
Takeaways from Alicante MVNO Nation – Beyond AI adoption
Six months ago, following MVNO Nation Americas 2026, we wrote that AI was no longer a “nice-to-have” for MVNOs., and that it was becoming a core capability affecting differentiation, scalability and profitability. The central argument was very simple: AI creates its meaningful value when it is…
The Roaming Invoice Nobody Reads
For most MVNOs, roaming is somebody else’s problem. The host operator or the hub handles the agreements, the clearing and the settlement. Once a month a statement arrives. Someone in finance checks that the total looks roughly right, and it gets paid. That arrangement works well enough, until it…
Growth Engines in an AI-world
Sustaining market presence, revenue and margin as a digital service provider Introduction To date, MVNOs have created compelling growth trajectories by moving quickly, homing in on white spaces, and owning the customer relationship without carrying the responsibilities (and costs) of…
MVNO Nation Europe 2026: four themes to watch and why they matter
From November 3rd to 5th, I’ll be attending MVNO Nation Europe 2026 in Alicante, Spain – the third time in a row I’ve attended the event. The MVNO industry is undergoing a period of transformation, with new players entering the market, shifting competition, evolving wholesale relationships, and…
The Security Blind Spots Threatening MVNO Growth
Why security decisions made before launch can determine the long-term success of an MVNO or IoT business. When a new Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) prepares to launch, early conversations usually focus on commercial opportunities. There are network agreements to negotiate, systems to…
When Physical AI Meets the Network
While analyzing the many developments in the field of AI, one thing quickly becomes clear: the conversation is no longer just about AI. More and more it’s about the infrastructure that allows intelligence to move from the digital world into the physical one. Some weeks ago, Rony Cohen from Flolive…
International Calling Is Still a Differentiator for Mobile Carriers
For years, mobile carriers have operated under the assumption that apps like WhatsApp would eventually replace traditional international calling. The opposite opportunity may exist. Carriers that simplify and modernize international calling now have a chance to differentiate their brand, improve…
Embracing the International Trend Towards Convergence
The connected household wants simplicity Let’s imagine we’re a modern household shopping for connectivity because we’re getting a phone for our teen for the first time. Instead of using the incumbent mobile provider we’ve had for the past five years, we’re looking for a different option. Our bill…
Everything but the radio: why Pakistan’s hosts should build the MVNA
1. A timely coincidence With so many voices publishing on MVNO Index, it is a nice coincidence that the article just before ours, Roman Khalenkov’s The first MVNO in your market should build the MVNE , looks at Pakistan from the enabler angle. We were preparing a piece on the same market, with a…
The first MVNO in your market should build the MVNE
The launch nobody told us about A few weeks ago one of our customers mentioned, almost in passing, that a new thin MVNO had gone live in the Netherlands. We were talking about something else. It came up as an aside, though they were clearly proud of it. One of their resellers had put its own name…
Loyalty that earns its keep: Marketing plays for MVNOs and Telcos
In this article we’ll cover the following types of loyalty and retention mechanics: Recognition and rewards Rituals and access Play and progress Data as the currency Household and advocacy Device and the upgrade cycle Tried and true – the basic levers Introduction I have spent a lot of time with…
Mobile Core Networks for MVNOs and Private Networks: A Guide
A phone call, a text alert, and a sensor reading from a warehouse forklift—all of it eventually passes through a core network. Most attention goes to the radio link, the part that gets a device talking to a cell tower. But the core is where the real work happens: confirming who’s on the network,…
Building a Lean MVNO Has Never Been Easier
A recent MVNE selection shows how AI can help a lean founding team move faster but it also highlights how easily an early idea can become a platform requirement. I have spent more than 15 years building, launching, and growing wireless companies, and I can confidently tell you that building a…
MVNO Licenses Are Not Enough
A focus on the African MNVO market evolution clearly indicates that Africa does not need regulators to issue more licences but needs more MVNOs that can launch, serve their customers and scale. That distinction matters if Africa’s MVNO market is to change significantly. A regulator-issued license…
Resolving the Industrial IT/OT Boardroom Paradox
Recap of Blog 1 In our previous post, we dismantled the illusion of mass-market B2B telecom strategies and explained why MNO/MVNOs must spin out a dedicated Sovereign Industrial SBU to bridge the domain capability gap. However, even with the right organizational vehicle, entering the heavy…
AI and KYC: Faster Onboarding, Explainable Risk Decisions
AI is playing a growing role in automated decisioning, particularly where large volumes of data must be assessed consistently and efficiently. In Know Your Customer (KYC) processes and digital onboarding, this can include identity, document, device and behavioral signals. AI helps organizations…
Value Creation in the Platform Economy
Evolving from PLM (network-out) to Continuous Value Delivery (Customer-in) Introduction In a traditional telecom environment, network connectivity was the value proposition; a product-centric approach resulted in a push philosophy and customer value was assumed to follow the trajectory of…
The Next Generation of MVNOs Won’t Look Like MVNOs
Why the next wave of mobile growth may come from companies that do not consider themselves telecom operators For most of the history of the MVNO industry, the business model has been fairly easy to recognize. Buy connectivity wholesale, package it into a mobile plan, put a brand around it, and go…
How to pick the right SIM card for your business.
Whether you’re using a smartphone, managing industrial equipment, or connecting vehicles, the SIM plays a critical role in keeping devices connected. But not all SIMs are designed for the same environment. Consumer, industrial, and automotive applications have very different requirements for…
Why Mobile Direct International Calling Still Matters in the Age of WhatsApp
Apps like WhatsApp have changed the way people communicate around the world. Messaging friends and family instantly across countries has become normal, and for many consumers, WhatsApp is part of daily life. But when it comes to making reliable international calls, especially voice calls, WhatsApp…
Churn, worst MVNO enemy!
1. Why Does a Customer Switch Mobile Operators? I’m coming back with this blog post to one of the topics I find most interesting in our industry: customer satisfaction and customer experience. In this article 8 Obvious and Not-So-Obvious Ways to Reduce Churn as an MVNO , Casey Zabaleta argues that…
Smart BSS: Augment or Upgrade?
Do MVNOs need to augment or upgrade their existing BSS to become AI-enabled? The question whether upgrading existing tools, and particularly the BSS, would be necessary, has frequently appeared as we analyzed the journey from AI pilots to profits, assessed the importance of AI readiness, and…
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…