How to Launch an MVNO - A Great Business Opportunity

Launching a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) is a very complex task involving the investment of many millions of dollars. It is seen by many as superb business opportunity, perhaps the route to making a multi million dollar fortune. However many people fail along the way; some lose hundreds of millions of dollars of investors funds.

The starting point to a successful MVNO is a strong consumer proposition. The proposition must be differentiated and have strong appeal to a selected target group of consumers. Often extensive market research is performed to verify the appeal of the proposition.

Next one needs to understand the end to end economics, how much will the consumers be willing to pay, what is the traffic mix, how much will distribution cost and what will the subscriber acquisition cost be. Finally is there a viable business case?

Once these questions have been answered you are ready to approach mobile operators in order to obtain the most valuable asset for an MVNO, a wholesale airtime agreement. If successful you then start the process of building your MVNO platform, sometimes an MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler) may be used to give a time to market advantage. Piran Partners are often quoted as saying that one should not start deploying systems until one is certain of a MVNO agreement.

Launching the MVNO comes as a reward for many months of hard work, however the launch process is often not easy, as Richard Branson the head of VirginMobile found when he launch the MVNO. Systems and customer care problems lead Richard to write to the initial VirginMobile customers.

One can reduce the risk of launching a MVNO by using skilled MVNO consultants.

Refer :

Frederic Williams is a freelance MVNO consultant and associate at Piran Partners LLP. Fred has over 20 years experience in the global mobile telecommunications business. http://www.piranpartners.com

(c) Piran Partners LLP 2007. Reproduction permitted provide no changes and links remain intact. All rights reserved internationally.

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