Saudi Arabia licenses MVNOs through the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST) under regulations adopted as decision 484/1443 on 20 April 2022, with a separate set of rules covering the host operator's obligations. Four MVNOs are licensed and trading: Virgin Mobile and Friendi on stc, Lebara on Mobily, Salam Mobile and Red Bull MOBILE on Zain. Together they hold about 11 per cent of the subscriber base on EFG Hermes' estimate, in a market CST put at 68.2 million mobile subscriptions for 2024. Licences have come in rounds rather than on demand, and the last award we can confirm was July 2021, so the first question for a new entrant is whether a window is open at all.
This glossary defines the terms that come up in host negotiations, licence applications and platform RFPs: operator models, network and SIM, BSS and billing, regulation and numbering, wholesale and commercial. The vocabulary is not standardised: a "thin" MVNO in one host's deck is a "Light" MVNO in another and a "Tier 2" licensee in a third. GSMA Intelligence counted 2,138 MVNOs worldwide in August 2025, of which 96 were Full MVNOs and 265 operator sub-brands.
The NCC licenses MVNOs in Nigeria across five tiers, from Tier 1 resale under the host's brand to Tier 5 with the operator's own core network elements. Between 43 and 46 companies hold a licence, yet by November 2025 only one or two were carrying live traffic, Vitel Wireless being the name that recurs. The gap is not regulatory: a licence produces neither a host agreement, nor a platform, nor a porting connection.
An AI assistant at a large operator worked out the fix for a business billing dispute in about four seconds: apply a credit, correct the rated plan, reissue the invoice. A person then spent two days executing it. The credit needed an approval the system could not record, the plan change had to be re-keyed into a second catalog, and the invoice could not be reversed without a manual ticket. The model was not the constraint. The operating environment was.
A Zimbabwean electrician in Johannesburg carries two numbers. The South African one gets him work, pays his rent through a wallet, and receives the OTPs his bank sends. The Zimbabwean one is how his mother reaches him and how the family account back home stays verified. He has been doing this for six years, which makes him neither a roaming customer nor a domestic subscriber. The travel eSIM was not designed for him and neither was the local MVNO, and there are roughly 25 million people in Africa living the same way.
The platform was ready in month four. The MVNO went live in month eleven. The seven months in between were spent almost entirely on integrations — specifically, on a number portability adapter that failed certification testing twice, and on an HLR/HSS provisioning interface with the host MNO that required three rounds of technical alignment because the MNO had upgraded its core network between specification sign-off and the testing window.
Centralized product catalogs are essential for any modern telecommunications business. As the telecoms industry revolutionizes and customer requirements change, it’s important to have a comprehensive system in place for managing all product-related data. A centralized product catalog can ensure that your products are always up-to-date and quickly available to your customers. Not only that, it can reduce operational costs, streamline processes, and increase revenue.
It's more crucial than ever for businesses to be creative and original when it comes to revenue generating in today's fast-paced and constantly changing business environment. Subscriptions is one approach to accomplishing this. Businesses can boost income and develop a devoted customer base by giving customers the choice to subscribe to a good or service. In this article, we will explore the benefits of subscription billing and how it can unlock new revenue streams for businesses.
The digital revolution has resulted in a significant change in how businesses operate. Businesses today use technology to improve operations and gain a competitive advantage. In this context, network providers' roles have become extremely valuable because they play a critical role in enabling digital transformation.
4 min read
Expert perspectives on telecom technologies, digital transformation, and modern BSS/OSS ecosystems.
Mexico is Latin America's reference MVNO market: Walmart's Bait passed roughly 20 million lines in 2025, and Mexican MVNOs together held 15.9 per cent of the mobile market, ahead of Movistar (TeleSemana reading IFT data, August 2025). GSMA Intelligence counted a near fivefold rise in Latin American MVNOs over a decade, and Omdia expects 10.6 per cent annual growth in the Americas. Mexico is unusual in having a wholesale network; elsewhere in the region you negotiate bilaterally with a host.
Banks launch MVNOs because a mobile line adds a second revenue stream and a daily reason to open the app. Capitec Connect, the mobile arm of a South African retail bank, reported net income of R442 million for the year to February 2026, up 129 per cent, on 1.5 million three-month-active subscribers, having launched in 2022; Nubank's NuCel passed one million customers in June 2026. What it takes is a host agreement and a BSS the bank controls rather than rents.
Multi-IMSI puts more than one subscriber identity on a single SIM, so the same device attaches as a local subscriber on several networks instead of roaming on one. The IMSI is the number of up to 15 digits that identifies a subscription inside the network; the phone number (MSISDN) is a separate thing mapped to it in the home operator's HLR or HSS. It earns its keep when a large share of traffic sits permanently outside the home network, cross-border IoT above all.
One search phrase covers three different products: a managed mobile service the vendor runs on your behalf, a place on an enabler's network, and BSS software you own and operate yourself. They cannot be compared feature by feature. Choose the category first, then the supplier. Twelve suppliers are grouped by category below, each described from what it states on its own pages as of September 2026.
Published ranges put a thin or Light MVNO launch at roughly €105,000–475,000 in the EU and UK (MVNO Index) or $100,000–400,000 (Spenza), and a Full MVNO at $2–10 million or more. The twenty-fold spread is the operating model, not vendor pricing: reselling, running your own BSS and owning core network elements are three different businesses. Any figure quoted before the model is settled is a guess.
An MVNO launch runs in five stages and takes 16 to 26 weeks from a signed host agreement to commercial launch. The calendar is set by the host operator, the regulator and the porting clearinghouse rather than by the software, which is why launches that bought perfectly good platforms still miss their dates. Settle the operating model first, Light, Medium or Full, because it decides every integration downstream.
A mid-sized MVNO reached 400,000 prepaid subscribers and something unexpected happened: margin per subscriber started falling, despite a recently renegotiated wholesale rate with the host MNO. The finance director couldn't explain it. The wholesale rate had improved. ARPU was stable. But the unit economics were worse.
Latin America (LATAM) and Africa are moving from being “experimental MVNO” regions to becoming strategically important growth markets for mobile virtual network operators and the MVNE platforms that enable them. For telecom executives, this shift changes the core question from “Is an MVNO viable here?” to “How fast can we enter — and on what digital foundation?”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn't just the future of telecom—it's already reshaping the industry. Today, over 60% of telcos use AI in various capacities, and industry forecasts indicate this will rise to 90% by 2027. AI, particularly generative AI, is transforming telecom’s Business Support Systems (BSS) and Operations Support Systems (OSS), fundamentally enhancing both customer experiences and operational efficiency.
Modern businesses can access a variety of tools and services to help them remain competitive in today's digitally driven world. Convergent billing, a system that allows companies to effectively handle their billing and payments, is one such tool. In this article, we'll examine the concept of convergent billing and talk about the various advantages it provides for modern businesses.
If you want to build a digital transformation roadmap for your business, you need to identify the benefits that it can provide and set goals for each stage of the process. Digital transformation is a complex, ongoing process that requires collaboration between many different departments in order to achieve results. It's important that everyone involved in creating or implementing a digital transformation roadmap understands what they're doing and why they're doing it so that their efforts work together effectively.
The technological sector is continually changing and influencing the future in ways we never imagined. New inventions and improvements are made available to us every year, changing the way we work and live. It is critical to stay ahead of the curve as 2023 approaches and to foresee the upcoming chances and novel experiences.
An MVNO in a box is a packaged service, not a piece of software: a multi-tenant SaaS BSS, a host network the vendor has already connected, SIM supply and the operational work around them. You launch faster and own less. Your own BSS takes longer to stand up but leaves the product, the subscriber data and the margin logic under your control. The question is which of those you need, not which is cheaper.
An MVNO earns on the spread between wholesale capacity and retail bundles, then widens it with add-ons, device and content bundles, and the value the parent business gets back. Airtime margin on its own rarely covers acquisition and care. Capitec Connect reported net income of R442 million for its 2026 financial year on about 1.5 million active subscribers, and Tesco Mobile ended 2024 with 5.7 million customers and £1.11 billion in revenue. Neither owns a tower or spectrum.
South Africa is the continent's most developed MVNO market: Cell C reported 5.7 million MVNO subscribers in May 2026, up 27 per cent year on year, which TechCabal put at 80 to 85 per cent of the national total. Twenty-three MVNOs operate there on wholesale agreements with hosts. The two decisions that set your timeline are the host and the enablement route; the authorisation you need is a question for the host's wholesale team and local counsel, not for a vendor's blog.
A European retail bank decided to launch a mobile proposition for its current account customers. They wanted control — over subscriber data, over pricing logic, over the ability to connect mobile usage to transaction history. So they chose a full MVNO model and contracted a BSS platform vendor accordingly. The project took 34 months from commercial decision to live service. By that point, two fintech competitors had launched mobile propositions, attracted a combined 600,000 subscribers, and were bundling banking and mobile in ways the bank had originally planned as its own differentiator.
Are you seeking for strategies to grow your company, boost sales, and access new markets? In that case, you might want to think about putting a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system in place. You can manage your partnerships, enhance teamwork, and grow your organization with the support of a PRM system. In this post, we'll talk about the advantages of PRM systems and how they can support your professional objectives.
Businesses require efficient billing solutions as they expand. Billing mediation can assist businesses in more quickly and precisely managing their billing processes. This article will explain the idea of billing mediation, how it functions, and why it's important for your company.
Convergent billing is a new and improved way of calculating and combining all of your telecom services into a single, easy-to-read bill. Convergent billing makes your life simpler as opposed to earlier billing systems, which were frequently difficult to understand and keep track of.
3 min read
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