Keep calm and #mvno_

That's all I have to say...

... wise words ...

Solavei and Radioshack interesting new MVNO business models and next big MVNO

Some big occurrences in MVNO land recently:

1. Over the weekend we had Solavei surfacing as live
2. Over the holidays a new data MVNO Radioshack emerged
3. We are working on the next big MVNO model :)

So, firstly up with Solavei, not only a new model, but also covered in Engadget and Allthingsd shows how mainstream MVNO is no becoming, in fact Engadget at least have been tracking the tag MVNO for nearly two years now.

Sadly Radioshack mobile was not about live tracking of their team... 

Radioshack makes a lot of sense as well, and begs the question why the likes of Maplin in the UK are not doing the same: the Maplin MVNO as per the Radioshack data MVNO, make a lot of sense for the sellers of hardware. There was a lot of speculation and leaks prior to launch,  as I had a suspicion they had done it just to enable team HTC style real live stats on races, which at the moment only Levi is doing as part of an association with mapmyride. Another equivalent in the UK/Europe would be Expansys, who rode the wave of mobile phone and gadget online growth from the middle of last decade, however at the time the MVNO model was not really ready for the MVNO, nor I suspect were the VC backers (I still have certain VCs throwing curve balls into MVNO discussions that they are adamant that MVNOs costs tens of millions of $ zzz...) wanting to invest in the MVNO model. VCs do not like investing in things they do not get 100%, and let's face it, not many people get MVNOs 100%, however in their defense, MNOs do not make VC investment easy with woolly clauses around assignment and commitments and ownership of customers, etc that restrict the sale value of any MVNO.

So back to the interesting models. Solavei are running an incentive scheme that we will all be watching very closely; both the fully inclusive model and the incentive to sign on other customers could be interesting, as long as the potential fraud elements are contained.

Radioshack is very interesting as, now online sales are prevalent in mobile, it levels the playing field somewhat for big brands like Radioshack, and the MNOs would be wise to jump on this one and engage these brands.

In terms of the interesting models we are working on, well you will have to wait and see! In the meantime, it is both great to see Engadget tagging MVNO as well as the likes of Allthingsd reporting on these developments, as it is refreshing to see the "next big things" coming through as MVNOs finally move out of "brands, supermarkets and ethnic". Even more interestingly, a lot of these will se the rise of MVNEs, at least in Europe where the direct MVNO roadmaps are congested to say the least...

Finally, we move onto the old topic of MVNO Marketing with Solavei being very refreshing indeed; in addition to the name sounding like Esperanto for "go solar" the marketing elements is definitely strong, as it the fact that Radioshack's core market may have been niche, everybody know's it via sponsoring cycling, just as the Sky brand is no enjoying a resurgence on the back of its Tour win, and announcing an MVNO is a not only a great way to advertise your mobile offering, but also the fact that Radioshack now sell more to more people, not just electronics kit's to the market that were the inspiration for the film "40 year old virgin".

So I leave you with my thoughts on MVNO marketing plans, a very popular thread that was reblogged by Prepaid MVNO among others, and an equally popular thread on personal brand MVNO. If you want to get these articles as they come, you can follow MVNO on Facebook, MVNO on Twitter or download our MVNO app and MVNO web app.

LTE data MVNO and wholesale LTE

LTE MVNO

I get asked a lot about LTE and the MVNO, and well be speaking about it and chairing a panel on it at the 2013 MVNO conference. Imust get asked about LTE and MVNO as much as I get asked about LTE and mobile apps if not more, and given that apps is a much, much bigger industry, well then it must be a big question!

Like many "MNO things" in MVNO, if you apply them without any thought, i.e. in what we will call a legacy manner, again, it will be your quickest route to MVNO failure, as you will just be selling what a bigger version of you is selling and spending more on marketing on and has bigger margins on so can squeeze you. However, I also get bored silly at conferences and meetings on LTE and the MVNO and how LTE will impact the market in general, and the main reason is that a lot of people are applying the same old principles as they did last time and the fundamental mistake:

Technology does not solve problems; it presents opportunities that can solve problems, but then this solution comes with its own set of problems, like everything in life...

The Fundamental mistake in terms of an MVNO is the fact that most MVNOs are still not leveraging 3G or even 2G data, how is evolution going to make a difference: the answer is manifold and varies depending on where we are talking about and the market there:

• In general: in general the only difference could be that hopefully LTE will make the MNOs a little more open to discuss data propositions for the MVNO. At present, MNOs, even the good ones, tend to have a mental seizure with data, as they expect the MVNO to assume the risk of arbitrage. MVNOs in turn, then have a similar level of mental breakdown when they insist they need bundles... when in fact they can get on selling at least 30% to 50% of the data they can sell by simply selling data to the 50% of the market that use under 100mb of data per month as I mentioned in a recent post and not worry their MNO with potential capacity strains that cause their MNO mental seizure in the first place. The reality here is that the MNOs should stop flat rating data that causes this issues in the first place, however they will not for fear of churn, or if they all do it price collusion, so LTE may well be the catalyst that spurs proper MNO data pricing that does not let 5% of the data leeching users ruin the experience and business models of the rest of the world!
• US market. Here LTE will be different, in that the CDMA players will finally have a play in the multimedia IMS space and a much more equal pegging that the two tier wholesale market at present, where the CDMA wholesale rate reflects the lower desirability of end users and business over GSM based solutions. We can expect the LTE players to be able to launch more, and more exciting MVNOs with LTE
• Data SIM usage. I have been saying for a long time (5-10) years that there will be a rise of SIM usage and that the MNO will not want to, let alone be able to fulfil all of these opportunities themselves. Indeed, if they do not, many of them will find less appealing alternatives that cut out the MNO all together. An example is GPS, at present people either tether to their phone when they can be bothered for probably 5% of journeys, or download off-line or even use a dongle: in essence, the MNO is making nothing here as this data will inevitably be an unseen blimp on a flat rate data tariff, or an extra 2mb twice a year on a standard tariff, or at worse be by-passed altogether (download via ISP). if they do a deal with an MVNO that manages these SIMs (maybe 1,000,000 SIMs to an HLR and low QoS, latency, etc that these devices will work fine with, vs. high availability, fully loaded generic SIMs or even MNO M2M SIMs which are still engineered towards an average scenario and over engineered quality that IBM requires, not what Joe Blogs wants for his 10 different devices....) the user will happily pay Tom Tom or Garmin £5 per month for the SIM and some other services they bundle, like auto updates, being able to track where you have been on a website, and even pay another £5 per month for the data; for every journey. This could be £2-5 per month incremental revenue for every TomTom or Garmin in car navigation device sold. As, I believe KPN coined the phrase; "wholesale is better than no sale". at present 95% of PAID mobile data solutions go unfulfilled... (I have run some numbers for this based on business models that have not made it, vs. the whole of business models I have put to market, and the lack of extra data sold on those that did go to market - its shocking!)
• M2M, as above, M2M has been engineered to the early adopter solutions that were defined by consultancies and technologists to cater for the first proposals, like tracking shipping containers around the world. Without going into details, the MNO is geared presently around small amounts of data over long periods of time and usually extended or wide spread distances. There are many other niche opportunities that have been aching to get to market, but have not been on thee in-house radar. All LTE will add, I hope, here is the ability for a two tier model of large local bandwidth and widespread lower bandwidth, which is not catered for at the moment without using wi-fi for the high bandwidth. While this may seem like a solution, if you think getting mobile coverage in your home, office and other locations is hard, try covering whole company locations and warehouses with wi-fi and integrating it with thee mobile network: there are many who will say its easy, and they are either lying or have never had to project manage the mess they designed! an all-mobile solution for this will be a game changer, assuming it changes the mind-set

The worst part? that the first and the second two could be done now, just that LTE will change the way a) people perceive data at the wholesale level, and b) will drive MNOs to drive usage and so we will see the business plans that were possible technically 5-10 years ago, finally be enabled, not by a technology, but by the circumstances that the arrival of a new technology has created.

If you like this article, please like us on facebook/mvnos or follow us / +1 on Google+ and of course follow us on twitter @MVNO_ 

If you want to discuss how you can enable data revenues for your MVNO or MNO wholesale department then use the contactify link at the top right of this page and get in touch

VAS, Facebook and the MVNO continued...

VAS MVNO, Facebook MVNO

As many of you will know, I feel quite passionately about VAS and the MVNO. This is not just an obsession, its just a realisation that any good business needs a tie-in, a value-add, a "something" that means it does not sell on price alone, and so when a newer, shinier competitor comes along, in order of preference the customer goes:

1. ah, but, does shiny new things do, this? no, thought not - high value - major competitive advantage
2. I would have to change the way I do all my...(insert VAS here) to work with the new service, medium value - useful advantage
3. I would have to update all my details, low value - would just be a pain to move, like moving bank account or electricity provider

The problem is, most MVNOs, and even some MNOs are not even on point 3 level of VAS.

So why not? well there is a list of reasons why from a legacy perspective this was the case, however things are changing

The usual ways to leverage data was content, content, content. were an expensive portal, streaming video, etc, etc. These days are gone, and the proof is the above. Indeed the days were never there, the amount of conferences I have chaired, attended and spoken at where "content" was the supposed issue, and all I could say was, customers have content: its emails (blackberry proved this to be the case!) and the web in general, but on the mobile. 

Facebook is driving MVNO

The proof is hand is this article: showing that facebook access from mobile has now surpassed computer access. I am honestly not surprised. In fact, in app development focus groups even 3 years back, we saw that a good mobile app, like only apple had at the time (an app that did not look like a mobile web browser, allowed upload of images and push notifications, chat) managed to completely shift usage of Facebook from computer to mobile, while more basic ones and now the very good mobile web experience manage to take a good deal of it.

The reasons for this are multiple, 

• many people do not have access to unrestricted internet access or facebook at work
• most of those who do would rather not be seen using facebook at work
• using Facebook on a PC raises probably more privacy issues as computers tend to be shared more and have more browsing history that people may not want plundering so facebook can make more advertising revenue
• the key one however is convenience, Facebook, and indeed our digital lives, are now round the clock, constant streams of info, updates, feeds, chats and more: mobile just suits this better, whether its from a web browser or an app

VAS is driving MVNO data

In fact, everything that is driving MNO data, is driving MVNO data, unless as an MVNO you make data difficult, like by not having the world's most advanced OTA data APN settings :).

The key is, with it being so simple to get this working, why are so many MVNOs still rendering themselves as a low value, sim-swapping bitpipe when all they need to do is get APN settings set-up, and some simple data tariffs. As we have seen, most users are using less than 100mb per month anyway as per my previous article on this blog, and as per my blog on Apps and App stores showing that even the most basic MVNO type handsets that many MVNOs perceive their user base is using, which means MVNOs can still be very competitive with the average data prices I am seeing while negotiating MVNO agreements (at least the prices I have seen in the last 3-5 years) and/or ones that could be easily and quickly agreed with an MVNO if approached with a plan around social networking, rather than the usual "I need cheaper prices" routine :)

If you like this article, please like us on facebook/mvnos or follow us / +1 on Google+ and of course follow us on twitter @MVNO_ 

If you want to discuss how you can enable data revenues for your MVNO or MNO wholesale department then use the contactify link at the top right of this page and get in touch

Data and MVNOs - what are they waiting for?

An interesting piece of research has confirmed something I have suspected and seen from wroking with MNOs and MVNOs over the years: a lot of smartphones don't actually use that much data, in fact 49% of smartphones in the UK use less than 100mb... This is roughly in line with operators' claims that 5% of users are hogging around 80-90% of the data usage, the rest (the difference between the 49% and the 5%) will be closer to the 100mb than the 1gb cap, in general. Over the last 5 years, from Nokia N95 to androids to iphones, I have averaged 176mb per month of mobile network data. The amount offloaded over wi-fi obviously higher, and there are occasional spats, moving house, etc where I have gone over that significantly.

So what does this mean for MVNOs and MNOs? Well, for a starts, MVNOs should stop whining about wholesale data prices and get on with selling data. even at 10p per mb, 49% of UK mobile phone users would be no better or no worse off paying GBP 0.10p per megabyte than the typical £10 per month "unlimited" data bundles they are using nowhere near the Fair usage policy. 

Does this mean everybody should move to an MVNO? No, most people, including myself, are quite happy paying £10 per month for unlimited data, knowing that I will pay the same if I use 85mb because I worked at home most of the month or 500mb because I was on a client site most of the month with no wi-fi to offload to... There were even more frustrating occasions when moving home once and my ISP messed up the installation of cable internet at the new property, I had gone past my 1bg fair use and as such my available bandwidth had been throttled back to a snails pace, however I could not pay my mobile operator another £10 in that same month for another gb of data at the usual high speed - this is nuts!

What does it mean to MNOs? Well, data has been documented by many as 80% of network costs, but its not 80% of network revenues, in fact its not even close, and that is no doubt before factoring in a handset subsidy of a brand new and reliably expensive smartphone. Most of these costs arise from the increased cost of backhaul and the ability of data hoggers to render this expensive backhaul useless, combined with an overwhelming need to satisfy various parties that the investment was necessary and that they have all the data users replacing the decline in voice and SMS revenues, even though the latter is still clearly the bulk of revenues... all very complicated, and unlikely that anybody within the MNOs will break this status quo. 

But my example of 85mb vs 500mb shows that its not just the data hoggers that are the problem, how do you plan to provision data for 10 to 20 million customers whose demand varies so much without huge data network running costs? Well the answer is to a model that matches usage with payment a bit closer. If I wanted to, I could offload most of that 500mb data from a month in an office with "no wifi" onto my laptop or actually define that "no wifi" meant there was wifi in that office, however it may involve me accepting a landing page every so often, or signing into a hotspot a few times per day: I would do that if my tariff matched my usage a bit more closely. As it is it is easier to switch off wifi in that office and let the MNO take that strain... 

When we finally match data a bit more closely to usage, MNOs can plan their network more effectively, they will cost significantly less than 80% of costs, revenues will go up and customers will stop complaining that data does not work, as the data hoggers will be weaned off and people will be using mobile data when they need it. More importantly, MNOs will finally be able to discuss MNO data requirements in earnest.

What we do know, is that the yield on mobile data in MNOs at the moment is much much lower than 10p per mb, at least in the UK and other territories where there is a data "land grab", and this data yield involves a marketing cost, often a very expensive (and complex and fickle one) of subsidising a smartphone, whereas the MVNO can sell a lot off this data at between 5p to 10p per mb very easily, whilst bearing the marketing and other customer costs and most of the general admin costs, while still yielding higher data revenue... And at the same time start breaking the "flat tariff" status quo madness and move to a pricing model that let's MNOs raise their own data yields and plan their network more effectively.

What does the customer gets? mobile data that works when you need it to, no matter what you pay...

And finally, to wrap up, I would advise any MVNO to get out there and sell data, by the mb, not by the bundle, people want data however you have to help them: 

• you need to have at least the basics of getting them to mobile friendly versions of the data they want to access
• you may want to let customers know when they have used  a given amount of data

We have done this by enabling data successfully for many MVNOs and once you have done this then you have the knowledge of your user base to be able to plan data marketing over the next few months and have a sensible conversation with the MNO about data pricing and bundles... its not rocket science, its what MVNOs have managed to do with voice (charge per min in a bundle environment) and SMS (charge per SMS in bundle environment) because there is a significant part of the population out there who want to budget their usage across data as well as voice and SMS and already have a shiny smartphone thank you very much...

If you like this article, please like us on facebook/mvnos or follow us / +1 on Google+ and of course follow us on twitter @MVNO_ 

If you want to discuss how you can enable data revenues for your MVNO or MNO wholesale department then use the contactify link at the top right of this page and get in touch

emerging market MVNOs and spare capacity

Emerging Market MVNO markets 

An interesting comment on the MVNO explained page posted such an interesting question I have decided to post about it in its own right:

"Hello, thanks for your insight on MVNO. very insightful. However, my country has refused to license MVNO operations. i have held presentations, sent them documents, written articles, directed them to the PrepaidMVNO website and even invited them to the MVNO summits. Their major concern is network congestion on the host MNO. service quality has been quite...actually really bad, the quality of mobile phone services are bad and the logic is that the networks have taken more subscribers and thus more traffic than their networks can handle, so introducing MVNO's may add pressure the their networks and further reduce service quality on the networks. i have argued against this logic without success. what will you say to this."

This raises a number of issues that I have seen come and go over the years in MVNO, and now coming again. Essentially, congestion/capacity was the key concern of the first UK MNOs prior to launching the first MVNOs, but their workaround was a commercial one, which is always encouraged, as can be seen in the financial results of MNOs supporting MVNOs!

Emerging market MVNO struggle

The thinking behind blocking MVNOs on this basis is flawed and obviously one arising from lobbying by people who have not taken the time to examine the facts, let alone the finances, which make MVNOs a no-brainer. However, in this same way, there are well documented cases of how  many US carriers fought and lobbied the US government for 10 years to stall the progress of the internet, a product which now forms the biggest part of their bottom line and dominates the product sections of their websites...

So, let's deal with the points one by one:

1. No network runs at full capacity all the time, like every and any service, there are peaks and troughs, and no two networks in the same country have the same profiles either. 
2. These peaks and troughs are very significant in both MNOs and MVNOs alike, with their networks running at eighty-some or ninety-some percent at peaks for a short period of the day, but typically at anything between 30-50% during the day, and obviously pretty much 0% all night.
3. No two networks in the same country have the same load profiles, in operators I have seen over the years across many countries have very different profiles due to having attracted a very different customer base. 
4. network capacity varies geographically as well
5. some types off traffic are more consuming of resources than others, for example now data makes up 80%+ of MNO network costs, but does not make anywhere near that percentage contribution in revenue or profits...
6. As data requirements and mobile penetration expand, if the MNO cannot even handle voice and SMS now, how are they going to tackle data and provide the country with the infrastructure it needs to grow??? If they are tackling this issue properly, voice and SMS capacity for MVNOs should not be a problem...
7. Some MNOs state that they run a very efficient network and therefore are not actively looking for MVNOs however, they do still run some pretty major MVNOs, they are just more selective and chose ones that complement their profile

MVNO African Story

At the time of the original article (2012) and this update (2013) there key barrier example used in Africa is "network capacity" as per above example. I shall be brief:

In short:  if a network were running at full capacity all the time, it would not just be congested as per the argument against MVNOs, but the network would actually fall over and cause major outages for long periods from a functional perspective. Furthermore the operator would surely be falling short of the service/coverage commitments they will have made to get a licence and become an operator in the first place, and certainly will not be able to cope with the data expansion that is needed for a country to grow in this internet age: Whoever is upholding full capacity as a barrier to MVNOs is either conspiring with a short-sighted MNO or MNOs, or having the wool pulled over their eyes by a short-sighted MNO(s)!

MVNO Latin American Emerging markets

There was a great presentation at the MVNO Conference just recently in Barcelona on the Mexican Market and how they managed to get the regulator to open up the market, basically by creating a group, and ringing the regulator and government departments every single day, among other things, very interesting, and good luck; however, I will end on three notes:

1.  you need to arm yourself with facts and show that these arguments have no substance at the same time
2. you can use the cases of the Spanish and Italian markets, which needed the regulator to open the market in 2006/2007, some of the last markets to adapt MVNOs which opened the floodgate for MVNOs
3. There is nothing like some prospects to get the market going... post Virgin mobile UK, every man and his dog approached t-mobile UK (then one2one) with an idea on a napkin to become an MVNO, most of them had no clue... if there is an opportunity, or many smaller opportunities that actually address a market the MNO is not addressing, then this helps as well.

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Ad funded mvno business model and the MVNO industry summit

Ad funded MVNO 

As the MVNO summit is just around the corner; a question that is often asked and/or a comment often made in MVNO conferences is:

• will MVNO business model X work in Y country/market, or
• X MVNO business failed so that MVNO model does not work... 

Is the ad-funded MVNO model still viable?

The ad -funded model is one of them, and as such has been part of my new blogs and old legacy MVNO blog for a while and can be found here: MVNO business models. You then of course have the other end of the scale, usually those who argues against MVNOs from the beginning and have now had to swallow their words as MVNOs make bigger and bigger percentages of MNO bottom lines: people who say that MVNOs as a whole  don't work when one happens to fail! Back on the more moderate heckler  let's deal with One of the most frequent is that, if Blyk failed then the ad funded model does not work... This is just plain wrong on a few levels:

1. 50% of all new businesses fail. In this respect, MVNOs are probably one of the best businesses you can invest in, as the failure rate is actually in single % figures in most countries over time. It has been higher, for example in France at first, when the regulator forced MVNOs, the result was that the network operator agreements were so restrictive that they strangled the first MVNOs... however they were all absorbed by the host MNO, so you could argue it was intentional: if they were proper failures the MNO would have set them out to dry rather than absorbing them. Blyk was also absorbed by its MNO - an MNO has full visibility of an MVNOs activities and potential, and they do not flog a dead horse!
2. The "ad" is very generic. If you look at the add business over the last few years you will see most of the traditional spend has all but disappeared and been replaced with display ads, Blyk started with a model based on ads that suddenly went into decline.
3. Mobile advertising is still in its infancy, it has been for 5 years, however this is now changing

Will the Brand MVNO, supermarket MVNO model, etc work in my country? 

In short, what does this mean? well it means that there has never been a better time to launch an ad funded business, as long as you are choosing the right type of ads, when to send them and, like any business, are careful how you spend and manage cash flow.

So, with the biggest MVNO summit to date, now extended to three days, let's make the MVNO Summit about where and how we are moving models like the ad funded model; add funded voice, data and SMS/MMS, to market in new countries, and maybe even take part in the MVNO challenge...

I will be adding to this list over the coming months, feel free to comment, like the  MVNO Facebook page, MVNO Google+ page or follow @MVNO_ on Twitter if you want to be notified of these updates

Marketing and MVNOs

MVNO marketing budgets, strategies & process

"We don't have a marketing budget" - yes you do, it's called lack of gross margin!

Often MVNOs have said to me "we don't have a marketing budget". My reply is almost inevitably always the same: "yes, you do, its that 10% - 20% of gross margin you are missing by selling on price due to a lack of a marketing plan, and the budget required to fund it!"

Marketing MVNOs in their infancy

MVNOs are still largely in their infancy as a result; they are still at the "white label" end of wholesale, where they are largely marketing on reselling a product and promoting simplicity or price. the opposite end is when you have a huge marketing budget, a great brand, and you can add hundreds or thousands of percent margin. I am not suggesting MVNOs will get their, yet, but there is still a long way to go.

There are emerging, promising behaviours. MVNOs with just a Facebook page, that I have referred to elsewhere on these blogs, however the fact that a client of mine, who has been in the MVNO business for many years and is very successful,  recently asked for help on their marketing strategy 3 days before launch shows the position we are in at the thick end of MVNOs

So why do we not have MVNO marketing strategies in MVNOs?

There are three main reasons MVNOs are not marketing well yet

1. to market a product successfully, you need to understand the end to end product, where it comes from, how much it costs, what element cost a lot, which ones cost a little (freebies do not pay for themselves) and of those things that cost a lot and a little, which add value and which don't and when. Virgin mobile were very good here, putting marketing people on the board, where they could see management accounts, understand the issues and as such end up with 2 million customers when they expected to have 200,000! As MVNOs are still in their infancy, most of my work in MVNOs is helping clients bridge that gap across the board, let alone finding a single marketing person who will understand this.
2. The market is still in its infancy and dynamic: I have trouble keeping abreast of the end to end dynamics of MVNOs and I work full time, have done since the beginning and allocate a huge amount of my time and effort to R&D and helping new entrants pro bono, as well as having a blog where every man and his dog who wants to be an MVNO invariably contacts me at one point or another. If you are not prepared to get your hands dirty or get off the clock every so often you stand no chance!

So what are the classic three MVNO marketing mistakes:

1. The MVNO is a brand and already has a marketing department. All well and good, but selling mobile wholesale is a specialist product and does not relate well to other services, except maybe wholesale food, where supermarkets have been moderately successful. however, to be a successful food marketeer, which supermarket marketeers generally are, as per point one above, you need to have your head in commodities you are selling, and wholesale minutes, mbs and messages will only be a distraction / part time job at best: it needs dedicated resource
2. The MVNO hires and ex MNO marketeer: this is ironically often the worst mistake, as they are either junior and never had the foresight to understand the end to end process of the MNO, and therefore will struggle to grasp the process in the MVNO, or they are senior enough to have been exposed to the whole marketing budget and reporting process and will inevitably be bored of the lack of MVNO budget sooner or later. That is assuming they can make the jump from MNO (essentially an manufacturer of mobile, high cost production, high margin, depreciating asset) to an MVNO which is at the other end of the industry (low cost production, low margin, no depreciating assets) - the whole paradigm is just very different. hence, you will not see supermarkets poaching marketing staff from their suppliers!
3. The MVNO has no marketing budget, understanding of market or desire to. I have seen this at the highest levels, where a CEO, 2 years in will ask the marketing person: what's the difference between above and below the line again? My reply, which you will be glad to know I invariably keep to myself, is "your results and your bonus". This lack of understanding usually results in one of two things: too much budget, and it is squandered on above the line, or two little budget and nothing can be done.

How to Market MVNOs more effectively...

My advice for MVNOs, based on having helped many MVNOs to market over the last 10 years, and thankfully they are all still in business, is to start small, measure success and grow the budget in line with results. The reason for this is that I have seen people in mobile spend money to acquire 100,000 25 year olds and achieved 500,000 43 year olds... on evaluation, the result was no where near as "cool" but the fact is that 43 years-olds have more money to spend on mobile than 25 year-olds and are more loyal: keep spending!

Leverage social, leverage on-line! 6 to 7 out of 10 sales in fully fledged and marketed MNO sales are online, this is up from less than 1% in just 2007. Companies such as Telmore in Denmark have grown to 800,000 subscribers in a country with a total population of just 4 people (or so!) mostly online, however:

1. to do this you need to be "web 2.0 aware" a terrible phrase, but true. Social is cheap as you basically outsource your marketing to the public. the stronger your brand and the better your product, the better you will fair, but as you grow you need to be able to manage this.
2. To sell MVNO online, you need to be online, that is, you need data and Value Added Services (VAS), another bug bear of MVNOs and a key subject of upcoming MVNO conferences, and one I cover here.

MVNO sales and marketing process:

1. get an initial budget: to do this you need to be honest about your Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) and attribute an appropriate proportion of that to marketing, I have used different amounts to different success over the years based on the growth plans, size of MVNO, stage of its development, brand, product and market position
2. hire someone young, enthusiastic, with the capacity and desire for very, very steep learning curves, but for god's sake keep them on track with:
3. Report on results, this can be growth figures, but also tenure, spend, what customers it attracted. being online and social can help here as the metrics are freely available and easy to process, fixed channels take longer and require full time data crunchers to analyse. Make sure you are keeping churn in check!
4. re-invest accordingly. A key here is how the MVNO has structured their agreement with suppliers, as if done wrongly, certain types of growth need to be monitored and marketed very carefully as they can cause cash flow issues! I have been asked to assist with MVNOs that have become a victim of their own success, unfortunately it has often been too late...

I shall be updating this page frequently so please do either follow us on twitter (box top right), or follow me, Christian Borrman, or my company, Virtuser on Google+

Samuel Eto'o MVNO cameroon the first of many personal mvnos

A very interesting MVNO launch recently has been the launch of Samuel Eto'o Fils is to launch his own MVNO in his home country Cameroon.

before going into detail, I want to get across that is is important in many ways:

1. It is in Africa, a continent that has been a world leader in many mobile developments, most so in mobile payments where there are multiple players in multiple regions, and as such the MVNO could server as an important enabler of new mobile technologies where the MNO can sometimes be slow, as well as the regulatory reform that most African countries are on the cusp or or in the midst of
2. It is football, the football MVNO has been very slow to market for various reasons, too many to list here from the last 10 years, but the time is right for the football MVNO, as well as other affiliate MVNO schemes, however, what is important is that the right club, or in this case the right player initiates and sets the tone for others to follow, which brings me to
3. It is the right player, in the right market; an older, respected player who is seen as a positive role model and has done lot's of well intended charity work, not just the token celebrity PR charity work, not just in Cameroon but further afield, whose "brand equity" will export to other countries, but has not chosen a crowded or too high profile market in which to launch

So far so good. Like with any MVNO, there are still pitfalls and the above are by no means a guaranteed recipe for success, however we start well, which is important.

African MVNO opportunity

The African market has been crying out for more MVNO activity for a while. It is a very interesting market where I have done quite a bit of work, from rolling out pan-African pre-pay TV, VAS aggregator and social networking products as well as other projects around pan African mobile payments: in short:

• The market wants regulatory reform, is mostly there, it needs a vehicle to push it, VAS aggregation or app stores may push it, buy MVNOs would be better for everybody - from mobile number portability to single short-codes and numbers in every country to real pan African aggregators
• The market wants more innovation, mobile payments got Africa off to a flying start, but a lack of dynamic vehicles is slowing it down. Once MNOs have got over the shock of MVNOs (usually about the time they see the amount of almost 100% EBITDA positive revenue they generate) they are also a fantastic platform for innovation that does not entrench the market where each operator mimics the other no matter what (GPRS, SMS, PTC, etc). That is, an MVNO in the states could have launched push to talk and would not have caused a de facto push of all MNOs to PTC, as it did with Nextel launching PTC: all that money later, where is PTC now??? 

Personal MVNO opportunity

The personal MVNO had to happen, it is a subset of the Brand MVNO opportunity and could work very, very well as

• Consumers tend to grow stronger and more loyal followings than brands, and they do not tend to go out of fashion as soon as other brands do. 
• They also lend themselves to a wider Value Added Services (VAS) opportunity, where the football club or other brand tend to use the MVNO as a brand extension for their core product, a person can easily endorse a wider range of products without diluting the proposition and as such keep the product fresher, more relevant, for longer. With Football based VAS we have rolled out for various MNOs and MVNOS we have seen subscriptions to footballers' feeds be much, much more loyal than those of clubs or leagues
• Personalities tend to cross borders better than clubs, which at the end of the day are more "national". there is therefore more opportunity to export both the model and the brand itself.
• people tend not to have a conflict: where a club may be sponsored or have links with an operator, a personal brand is seen as a "free agent".

However, having said this, the brand is important - it should be an inclusive brand. Eto'o does not spark a controversy or an objection; controversy may sell initially, but it does not expand well, nor attract the golden feature of any MVNO: loyalty. you also do not want a brand that even the most loyal fan may feel ashamed of or want to keep quiet at any moment. That is, with a club phone, you do not want it to ring when you are in a bar watching a game with a bunch of supporters from another team, or when you have beaten someone away... a player does not have that "exclusion".

So what will be key to personal MVNO success:

1. Value added services, starting with the obvious (which should be for free) but moving beyond that
2. Getting the right deals and partners: the MNO, MVNE and other contracts should not have the usual clauses that make it difficult for the MVNO to be traded, sold or floated or even ported, should it become too big or too different to what was expected and no longer fit either parties strategic needs. This is the case for any MVNO, but more so with ones like this which are firsts, and the unknowns are huge: this could easily attract 1 million or more of the Cameroon population, or could only have 50,000 subs after 3 years, even then, the spend, type of usage, handset preference and many more unknowns mean that any/all of the parties may outgrow or be outgrown by the product.
3. keeping it simple and scalable: no personalised handsets, no VAS that cannot be scaled or retracted or need silly numbers to get ROI... the business model needs to work on many levels and adapt to the unkowns

If it does this we may well have out next MVNO model darling, and it will be all about the brand again... bless :)

I shall be adding more in the coming months and pasting updates vai the Virtuser Google+ and Virtuser Facebook pages, so please like us on Facebook and +1 us if you have found this article interesting, useful or helpful. 

Free entry to French Mobile market

Free MVNO France

Are MVNOs Free in France?

Its an interesting twist on words, calling a new operator "free" but that is a comment for a coffee later. And no, the answer is nothing is free in France, you pay for everything, even being an MVNO :)

What is interesting is the MNOs starting to see the strain of Free. When Virgin Mobile was launched in the UK a similar trend occurred, whereby many people had just had enough of  the complexity and uncertainty of spend on traditional tariffs. In this sense, Virgin Mobile had close to 2 million customers when it had expected to have 200,000.

So what does this mean for MVNOs? In reality these people are the early adopters / first movers. Those whose dissatisfaction with their present offering is so strong that they will take anything new on the market. This is an interesting phenomenon I have seen from my last few MVNO launches in mature markets, whereby you can allow for a certain take-up, sometimes even a breakeven figure of users, to be attracted to a new network just by addressing a niche well enough to capture a single digit percentage or even percentile of a mature market's monthly mobile churn.

So what does the MNO do when and MVNO has its breakfast?

So these were the first movers. In the next two years we will see the me-too's and followers follow, typically 70-80% of any given market, and these will be best attracted by mainstream, niche and other MVNOs that successfully target and attract users from any given market segment that the MNO itself is weak in. So this is a clear sign that French MNOs need to open up to wholesale and capture these niches as strategically and innovatively, and as quickly, as possible.

In many MVNO business models, I have had this element of customer attraction, which I call "churn soak-up" at anything between 5% and 40% of an MVNOs take-up in the critical first 6 to 9 months of operation. The amount of take-up is directly proportional to how well this MVNO business plan, brand, product and proposition addresses a niche, and to some extent how much and what type of marketing is done to address the market and the strength of the MVNO's brand. If you are willing to invest the time (and some money) in getting both the brand and the proposition right and targeting the brand/proposition well (all within sensible SAC margins) then this element of take-up can be in the double digits of growth and soaking up significant percentages of churn in a market.

Update 2013, post 2012 networking conference in Paris: The host MNO did nothing, another MNO took the two biggest MVNOs as full MVNOs on their network! as the Dutch (KPN) say: wholesale is better than no sale!

The flipside? when done well, these customers stay with the MVNO brand that successfully addresses  the niche, long after they have churned from the "rebound" operator, in this the rebound fling is Free in France :) (yes I got to one of the amusing twists of its name :)

MVNO VAS

VAS or Value Added Services were once the darling of planet MNO mobile operator, to some extend they still are, only now we seem to have forgotten all the original VAS and just focus on thenew ones like app stores. Then along came the MVNO, the new darling of Mobile, then it went from retail to wholesale and in the fracas we seem to have lost Value Added Services in the MVNO space.

There are a few reasons for this:


Click here to read on

Mobile Roaming Conference Chair's Digest 2011

Mobile Roaming 2011 Digest

The Mobile Roaming Conference was also a great event, and a very successful one too, with a packed schedule of presentations, and a great story built as the presentations moved through the day: starting with the issues, then following with some great case studies and then other strategies for maximising roaming revenue, and making roaming as efficient as possible, from centralising roaming to hubbing to wholesale as part of the roaming strategy... To boot the Hotel was great and the bar proved popular afterwards... so I hear, anyway :)

Roamaing Conference Overview

For those of you who just want the low down, in a few bullets:

• It may be no surprise that volume is increasing as margins are decreasing...
• Data is growing, VAS is growing, voice and SMS is shrinking, just like retail
• Roaming and Wholesale are merging
• We had a great presentation and case study on roaming segmentation which saw a 35% increase in usage, 21% increase in revenue and 13% increase in margin
• EC Roaming regulations require huge amounts of caffeine to sit through... more below
• The IPX is central to CDMA but not yet GSM VAS
• Centralised group roaming departments are doing more group level agreements in a month that they previously did on a country level in a year!

Roaming Conference Presentations:

Here are the bullet point “highlights”:

• As volumes increase but margins decrease things have to change: centralisation, segmentation, more attention to settlement, centralised negotiations by group volume and hubbing...
• The bilateral "spaghetti" model is moving to a more centralised, hubbed "cannelloni" model (yes that second analogy was used).
• Downsizing can just be migrating of smaller routes...
• Data is growing and some interesting VAS were emerging, such a service specific, i.e. Facebook and Twitter daily bundles for example...
• Data is still nowhere near as high as it should be as many just turn data roaming off as the smartphone takes grip, even so it is the growing trend: engaging the "sleeper roamer"! 
• 40% of travellers do not roam at all...
• Thank you messages work... why just AoC roaming welcome messages
• There were a couple of differing views on the EC roaming regulation, especially round the single IMSI, single IMSI breakout or dual IMSI approach... to be honest it is quite clear to me who will go which way (MNOs, MVNOs and hubs), but there is plenty to debate here.
• An interesting point of view was the fact that the breakout model will just drive global revenues to silicon valley, i.e. the Google mobile revenue fund and the Apple mobile revenue share fund
• There is an inbound vs outbound and how bundles should or could make their way from retail into wholesale. We already see it (and very successful!) with some MNOs and MVNOs (we have enabled a few services via the Roaming Welcome message AoC so can see).
• 15% of roaming traffic from one operator was identified as "honey moon" traffic... let's hope it was to elate on happiness and not seek council...
• hubbing not only sees synergies in efficiency, but also revenue assurance!
• MVNOs will drive hub adoption, especially with two month compliance for roaming access in EU roaming regulations
• An analogy was likening the Roaming market to an aviation analogy: air miles, code sharing and alliances are the way forward... there is something in it, though I am not expecting a movie with George Clooney about mobile roaming points anytime soon...
• Airline similarities continue obviously as roaming revenues track airline travel increase... and airline traffic is still growing
• Wholesale is seen a key way to attract the 40% who do not roam at all as well as other "sleeper revenue", VAS is seen as way to get both wholesale and own roaming revenues up, the latter also cannot argue with the stats on segmentation (the former segments itself generally).

MVNO Networking Paris Congress Chair Digest 2011

MVNO Networking Congress 2011 (November) Digest

The MVNO networking congress was a great event, and a very successful one too, just the week before Jayme contacted me to let me know I would be chairing 13 presentation instead of 8, so the schedule was “tight” to say the least!

The MVNO Conference Overview

For those of you who just want the low down, you can see some of the Twitter comments on your left, and my closing bullets were:

• We have seen and continuing to see significant growth in MVNO, so far we have only touched the surface, even in the overcrowded ethnic and low costs space
• MVNO churn is the lowest in pretty much every market
• VAS are key: Data, payments, Social Networking, all generating more value, loyalty and even contributing to any MRG
• Channels are expanding: social, online, new retail
• MVNO growth is now starting in value, as well as size due to previous points

MVNO networking Conference 2012 Presentations:

The intro was pretty quick, I am not big on long intros of the conference of the speakers: speakers bios are so random in their content (we should have top trumps card in the audience if you want to check out bios that are structured instead of random details and regional quirks…) and I think the audience is there to see presentations, so don’t make them wait for presentations… on that note below is my summary, in order to not name names or other anti-social behaviour I do not list by presenter and company but by relevant info. As an Englishman I will no doubt have to engage in some hooliganism afterwards to make up for such sensible and neighbourly behaviour J.

MVNO Networking Conference “highlights”:

• 6 million MVNO customers in France, 50% increase in 2010-2011
• Churn is generally lower in MVNOs (3 sources, 2 continents)
• Annual MVNO churn in France is sub 20% (annual!)
• MVNO customers 14% of UK Market
• “Wholesale is better than no-sale” Old KPN quote was reborn in a pres, good to see!
• One non-full MVNO going full MVNO to have more control over VAS and data provisioning infrastructure as data becomes a key part of their differentiation and marketing strategy
• Another non-full MVNO going full to be able to potentially leverage multiple hosts (not advised, so many MNVOs forget that their host is like their big brother in the playground – even if you do not like him and he may not even care much for you, but if you are on good terms, he can save you getting a wedgie or a swirlie) i.e. you will generally get more from an engaged single MNO than you would ever get by trying to trade MNOs off against each other. This is the case even at initial negotiation stage.
• On this note we had an MNO likening the MVNO to a clown fish and the operator to the sea anemone, with one protecting the other from the rest of the creatures (sharks) in the sea… This MNO is actively seeking clownfish!
• The MNO used to use the MVNE as a filter, now more flexible and used as a solution
• La Poste has 2.2 Million customers in Italy, looking to move to full MVNO due to scale, it is a “buy” vs. “make” strategy.
• La Poste MVNO have the lowest churn in Italy.
• 50% of La Poste customers have made a mobile payments transaction via the card linked with the mobile account.
• Colruyt supermarket MVNO launched in Belgium, a la Tesco Mobile model: the key is a line from the music industry “once a hit, always a hit” if a model has been successful in one country, it is likely to do the same in another, again and again.
• MVNOs managed to make a “per min” and “per message” business back in a “bundle” market space, they are doing the same in data, charging a premium in “per meg” data. In Denmark the main MVNO is doing this at a premium of 2.5x market rate.
• Online is the key channel to avoid “shelf overload”. The customer now has so much choice in the typical retail establishments. Telmore has reached 800,000 subscribers in Denmark (over 12% of Danish market in just one MVNO) mostly via online.
• If not online, other innovative channels are required, especially in places like the Austrian market, where €10 gets you 1000 mins and 1000 SMS, an MVNO has to do more than just traditional channels.
• Social Networking is becoming a key differentiator
• Some interesting comments on the EC Roaming regulation (its all relative, they were interesting as roaming regulation comments, but not interesting enough for a blog!) but if someone is interested enough I can dig them out...

... the main MVNO page archive ...

MVNO blog has moved!

below is the rest of the original blog main page archive, I shall be moving the old blog over shortly, so apologies if any of the links fail while this happens, but please comment if you do find a broken link and I will try and fix it as soon as possible:

There has never been a better time for the MVNO

The MVNO has had its set backs (see my failed MVNOs page) however the conditions have never been better time for MVNOs; with MNOs clearly wishing to capitalise on the opportunity, mobile saturation to the point that a new service provider will attract significant potential customers (i.e. competitors' churn), and many other factors assisting the process. There are still pitfalls, however, the main one is competing with an MNO on MNO's terms by offering all you can eat bundles and expensive customer acquisition processes which will see the MVNO's cost per gross added customer soar: The key to an successful MVNO, and moreover a successful MNO-MVNO relationship, is to attract a customer cheaper and keep a customer longer... there are a couple of existing and an emerging MVNO that look close to entering the page linked to at the top of this paragraph - only time will tell!

posted by Christian Borrman 06:26pm 04/05/10

Nokia hardware MVNO

Reportedly Nokia is planning a Hardware MVNO in Japan, which would push the OVI portal services within this market. As correctly pointed out in this article, by Rethink wireless that Nokia has found it difficult to enter the Japanese market due to the operators' insistence on using i-mode type services, these services will not necessarily be a barrier to the success of a hardware and on device portal MVNO, read more

posted by Christian Borrman 19:26pm 24/11/08

Dell hardware MVNO

The MVNO has been and continues to be a slow beast. One MVNO model that is heavily overdue is the Dell MVNO, having already ventured into deals with carphone warehouse and Vodafone for laptops with mobile or fixed broadband, the onslaught of the new sub £300 laptops is making read more

posted by Christian Borrman 11:26am 24/11/08

Another Failed MVNO - Dot Mobile added to the list

It is not hard to see why. In 2005 I was lured to head up the mobile arm of £12m start-up icom, which included a youth MVNO, however, the most common expression I would hear to my repeated youth MVNO business models and plans from the billionaire funder and financier in board meetings was “Bollocks!”. read more MVNO failures

Apple Global MVNO

It is no secret that a typical MVNO may only manage to get a 10% to 40% margin on calls, onto which it has to add its costs. This is usually OK, and many of these have either already been sunk, written off or are ... read full article

Tesco Converged MVNO; VoIP, VoWLAN using SIP and own broadband VoIP service

One of the key issues of Tesco when first negotiating their MVNO when I was at Mason Analysis, was that the host MNO needed a certain level of success and takeup for the then MNO investment in the MVNO (there were no MVNEs at the time) however, if the MVNO became too successful, it could prove a burden on the host network. Convergence is a simple way to... read more

posted by Christian Borrman 13:23am 28/05/08

More MVNO failures

Dotmobile has been added to the long list of MVNO failures. It was not hard, when I was lured to join Social networking web start-up icom, my first task was to set-up a youth MVNO. "Boll**ks" was the response from the billionaire investor to my first draft that the industry and my peers were lapping up for a youth MVNO. The truth is... read more

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posted by Christian Borrman 11:26pm 28/03/08

Apple Global MVNO

It is no secret that a typical MVNO may only manage to get a 10% to 40% margin on calls, onto which it has to add its costs. This is usually OK, and many of these have either already been sunk, written off or are ... read full article

Comment | Contact

originally posted by Christian Borrman 11:26am 25/09/07

 

RE: Why Europe's Mobile Startups Sing

... the artcile in Businees Week, Why Europe's Mobile Startups Sing ... is right in that one MVNO model is the low cost route, however there are more important keys I have seen, from behind the scenes, that have made or broke MVNOs in ... read full article

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originally posted by Christian Borrman 11:26am 25/09/07

 

Is there value in MVNOs?

I have received an email from Pyramid with this title. It is amazing ... just two year's after publishing "Next Generation MVNOs" that Pyramid finally ask if there is still value in the last generation MVNO. Well no; there was no value in the old MVNO model in 2004 when I began writing the report, nor was there in 2005 when it was published; even less so today. Today's MVNO is a much leaner ... read full article

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originally posted by Christian Borrman 06:50am 05/04/07

MVNO in a Box

MVNO in a box

Readmade MVNO, by ACME

The MVNO in a box has changed, so what has changed? Well, the starting point, not the end point: there are MVNAs now that start at €1,000, ok you still need to market the product, pack the SIMs, distribute them and more, but it's still a low starting point and this is important: you are not necessarily going to carry on and expand with this solution, but the starting point is low enough for more to come through, refine the service and the product, learn a bit more about mobile, etc before then going back to the MVNE or MNO table with a refined plan and some actual numbers. This is important for four key factors:

1. Fewer MVNOs failing to ever get to market or going bust getting there
2. Better services: there are people who know services and there are people who know mobile, that canyon is very seldom bridged, zip wired, and sometimes not even crossed!
3. possibility of funding: the amount of potential MVNOs I and the MNOs speak to that are looking for funding is huge: huge because there are many, and huge because they very, very seldom get funded as you have half of the funders fed crap from people who pretend to know MVNOs saying they cost £5-10 million, and those that do understand just will not take the MVNE/MNO risk or stomach the unkowns through due diligence: a small going concern is differnt
4. they will stop people competing on price: so many MVNOs start with a value proposition, and a conviction that the MVNO will take 6-12 months less time that it actually does... 6-12 months later they tend to descope services to launch quicker and the first to go are the Value Added Services... and so they compete on price. One thing is clear - a €1,000 MVNA is not going to permit you the lazy luxury (lazy as competing on price is just the most expensive marketing and product development you can do) to sell on price - you are going to have to sell on service. There are also fewer SIMs, so you are not going to waste them: this means making sure you charge for a SIM, only sell it to someone who wants it and sell it at a profit... All failed MVNOs that did not fail because they were silly ideas or other high risks fail by a) cutting VAS, b) giving away SIMs, c) selling on price.

MVNE vs MVNA

The end point is still the same: use your MVNO in a box if it allows you to prove a live concept with the same budget you were previously going to use to explore or prove a concept with (research, reports, etc). Then take a refined trial service and apply the below logic from my post of last year to an MVNE / MNO proposition, which if good, will not come "in a box" but will need some hard work, but it will be hard work you will find the MNO or MVNE very willing to help you with!

Original MVNO in a box article 2011

I have just been through the MVNO Industry Summit Linkedin group and been on a rant! Why? The first was someone asking if anyone if anybody had an MVNO in a box solution. OK: the MVNO has come a long way, the first one took several years, and to be honest, my shortest engagement on an MVNO has been 6 month, and that is when I have joined at least double that time into the process, and I have managed to accelerate the process by at least 4-5 months. MVNOs, along with app stores, are the single most complex products you can launch in mobile, and the technical parts working are just the start. Forget "in a box" and think, what is my box that I will tick in the market. At present, if you look at the mobile consumer as a whole, probably only 5% to 10% of mobile consumers could actually buy a product "in a box" The most part buy a mix of device matched with an almost bespoke tariff, term, contract and other extras, bolt-ons and more, let's not even begin with accessories, ring-tones and the like. Therefore, if you want an "MVNO in a box" think more about if your product that is simple and relevant enough that i would enable a significant market of consumers to buy your product "out of the box". you will then be of enough interest to the market and an MNO that your "mvno solution in a box" worries will practically go away!

originally posted by Christian Borrman 18:50pm 04/03/11

MVNO Opportunities

So what has changed since nearly a year ago of speaking to MNOs, MVNOs and MVNEs as well as  two major MVNO conferences? 

The opportunities are there, in the existing form, as per below post and thread on Linkedin, moreover, we have only just scratched the surface of the MVNO to date: we are still only in the "value stage" of wholesale: If you like, we are somewhere in between when Marks and Spencer used to sell everything for 1p on a market stall and when Tesco used to be the "pile them high" almost warehouse experience - 

The "St. Michael" and "taste the difference" is the opportunity from what we have done so far, and this means existing brands and new MVNOs entering the same space but moving further up the value chain with VAS as the Androids and other smartphones take hold of even MVNO handset databases.

The other opportunities are equally interesting at this happens: 

• Higher end MVNOs - remember Fortnum and Mason predate any of the other wholesale analogies relevant to mobile! Also the Vertu and American Express Black example below
• More niche MVNOs and MVNEs and MVNAs - the present MNO direct or MVNE model has been awkward for niches, but we are seeing that finally change with lowest end MVNAs offering services from €1,000 set-up to prove a concept or test the water or even refine a service, and even MVNOs setting up without a web page but just a social network page to attract customers...
• Technology MVNOs: iPads, Garmins, TomToms, Galaxy Pads, Playstations, etc, etc could all benefit from SIMs that can serve their needs, not those of 99% of the SIMs to date where the service has been shaped around lots of calls, some texts and a bit of data slapped on as an afterthought
• Service based MVNOs: Vertu, American Express, black cards, private banking... with host MNO o2 getting the public Wi-Fi for the lucrative Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea markets, beating Sky and Virgin Media to the post, these are the kind of opportunities... 

Forgive the UK specific examples, but this is where it all kicked off and is my market where I am better places to assess the opportunities, and speak to the MNOs, MVNEs and MVNAs on a weekly basis and discuss these matters, but there are applicable to the ROW

Below post originally posted by Christian Borrman 28:50pm 08/03/11

My other rant from the linkedin MVNO Industry summit group discussion board (see other below) is defining MVNO opportunities and being honest about the opportunity. There are simplified MVNO dichotomy is that the MVNO pipeline is full of either:

a) big brands, with distribution, but no defined / differentiated product to set it aside from the MNO, which already has a brand and a non-differentiated product thank-you very much

b) the great ideas that do not have the distribution, and even then, cannot focus their product enough around the opportunity.

This is outside those that are MVNO in a box potential, who also grossly underestimate the term "in a box" to mean mvno=easy... and then forget to differentiate and simplify the product...

... the rant was sparked about people talking about the power of mobile to bring customers to a supermarket, and how mobile can supplement their database: supermarkets have an age-old ability to bring customers in, its called the threshold or catchment area of poor buggers who have no alternative if they want to eat... and supermarkets know more about their customers than it is probably better to be aware of if you are of the pelican brief persuasion!

originally posted by Christian Borrman 28:50pm 08/03/11