How are MVNOs unlocking enterprise value?

Fragmentation: The Invisible Wall in Enterprise Telecom

A few years ago, I helped a global enterprise to set up mobile connectivity across its markets. Seven countries. Seven providers. Seven dashboards. Seven support teams. Each market had its own billing cycle, pricing model, and compliance rules. When someone left, closing a line could take weeks. When someone relocated, a new contract had to be signed, adding another invoice to the pile. Reports arrived in different formats, currencies, and time zones.

This setup was standard across enterprises.

Telecom, unlike most enterprise systems, never globalized. HR platforms sync worldwide. CRMs manage millions of relationships in real time. Finance systems consolidate currencies and tax structures effortlessly. Yet the mobile network, the layer connecting it all, remains trapped in a fragmented, country-by-country model. At first, companies do not notice. But as they scale, fragmentation becomes a wall. Built from local contracts, incompatible billing, and regulation from a pre-global era. It slows operations, adds cost, and limits flexibility. That is an ironic industry flaw since telecom should be the simplest layer of all. Its purpose is to connect people.

Where MVNOs Step In

This fragmentation is not something traditional MNOs can solve. They built their systems for national markets, optimized for coverage and capacity within borders. Not for seamless operations across them. The structure itself prevents them from addressing the problem. MVNOs, however, have the potential to do so, but only if built for a clearly defined purpose. Most MVNOs spent decades reselling connectivity instead of redesigning how it’s managed.

The key lies in identifying a specific inefficiency and building around it. When an MVNO is engineered to solve a concrete structural flaw, it can unlock enterprise value that MNOs cannot reach on their own. In practice, that means rethinking telecom as an operational layer, not just infrastructure. A well-built MVNO connects what was once fragmented, removes redundant processes, and enables enterprises to operate globally with the same simplicity they expect from other core systems.

That’s where the real opportunity begins.

Unlocking Enterprise Value: The Real Opportunity for MVNOs

To understand how MVNOs unlock enterprise value, we first need to define it in a telecom context. Enterprises, companies with more than 250 employees, represent only 0.2% of all EU firms. Yet they generate 47.5% of total economic output and employ over a third of the workforce. Whoever captures this segment, wins. For decades, much of that value has stayed locked behind borders, silos, and legacy systems. MNOs have built strong national networks, but few have turned that strength into a unified global offer.

No single MNO can serve global demand alone. MVNOs can. They act as an additional commercial channel, extending reach, unlocking new revenue, and allowing enterprises to buy mobility globally, seamlessly, and from one source. In doing so, MVNOs become the key that helps MNOs unlock the full enterprise opportunity.

From Competition to Collaboration

When MNOs collaborate with MVNOs, five advantages emerge:

1. Increased Wholesale Revenue
Each enterprise SIM deployed through an MVNO drives wholesale traffic on existing networks. It is incremental, high-margin revenue without new infrastructure.

2. Expanded Roaming Volume
MVNOs use sponsored roaming to activate coverage instantly. This increases roaming volume, improves utilization, and speeds up market entry.

3. Better Network Utilization
By integrating with an operator’s international voice and calling systems, MVNOs can offer enterprise customers premium-quality international calling. While the MVNO strengthens its enterprise portfolio with quality voice routes, the MNO benefits from increased traffic and utilization across its existing global interconnects.

4. Stronger B2B Position
MVNOs enable MNOs to extend their B2B offerings beyond their own stack. This can be done in multiple ways such as through adding additional offerings, bundling or simply extending their reach. Adding more services and new revenue streams, strengthening their enterprise position without new infrastructure.

5. Early Entry into the Mobility-as-a-Service Era
Telecom’s future is software-based. MVNOs with API-first models give MNOs a foothold in embedded mobility within SaaS and digital ecosystems.

Together, these factors shift the focus from competition to collaboration. From regional infrastructure to global integration. From hardware-driven to software-enabled. MVNOs are not competitors. They are catalysts turning static infrastructure into scalable enterprise growth.

From Partnerships to Acceleration

The real unlock happens when collaboration replaces competition. Not long ago, expanding into a new market could take years. Local licensing, regulatory frameworks, and wholesale negotiations slowed everything down. Today, strategic partnerships between MVNOs and MNOs have rewritten that process entirely. Through modern wholesale frameworks, local activation now happens in days. Enterprises can deploy connectivity instantly across borders without new infrastructure or lengthy rollout cycles. This is where the MVNO model proves its strength by accelerating scale instead of adding complexity.

When MVNOs and MNOs collaborate, both sides gain. MVNOs gain reach, reliability, and enterprise credibility through established networks. MNOs gain access to new enterprise customers, extended service capabilities, and a stronger global position. Each new partnership compounds the effect. New cross-border services emerge. New product categories open. Each integration strengthens the ecosystem and moves the industry closer to a borderless model. As this momentum builds, some MNOs already view MVNOs as strategic channels. That mindset gives MVNOs a competitive edge. It creates leverage in negotiations, drives urgency in partnerships, and accelerates market access.

The MVNOs that act on this dynamic first will be the ones capturing enterprise value.

The Borderless Future of Telecom

MVNOs can be the solution to industrial design flaws. They transform existing national networks into a global delivery channel. Unlocking the enterprise value that has long been just out of reach. The model works. It scales. And it is already in motion.

Those who act early will own the enterprise relationships, the revenue, and the relevance that follow. MVNOs are the mechanism that allows the industry to operate as one interconnected system. A system where infrastructure meets intelligence, and global connectivity becomes as seamless as local service.

That is how MVNOs unlock enterprise value.