MVNOs and the Rise of Experience-Led Telco

These lean, digital-native challengers are winning hearts (and market share) through razor-sharp onboarding, lifestyle-centric bundles, and pricing strategies that feel intuitive, not institutional. While traditional MNOs wrestle with legacy stacks and labyrinthine product catalogs, MVNOs are quietly reshaping the industry.

But here’s the thing: it’s not too late. MNOs can also play the customer experience game, but only by rewriting their own. That means simplifying offers, embracing composability, and shifting focus from consumption to context.

Let’s dive into how MVNOs are gaining ground—and what bold moves MNOs must make to stay relevant in the age of digital-first telco.

‍

Niche Focus

MVNOs use their nimbleness and marketing focus to identify and capture user groups with distinct (and profitable) profiles. You find them connecting with digital nomads needing a new service that connects with their lifestyle choices, Gen Z and retirees living on a tight budget, immigrant populations who want location flexibility, and gamers who have unique streaming demands.

This niche approach allows them to deliver highly tailored offerings, messaging, and services that resonate deeply.

Holafly targets digital nomads and their need to be online wherever they travel.  Their message is, “We give travelers peace of mind wherever they are.” The brand was built from the founders’ frustration traveling the world and not having an internet connection. They solved the problem by letting their customers buy data plans for any country they want to go to, but do it from their home country using an eSIM enabled smartphone.  As a company they buy bulk data from local MNOs and resell it under their own brand.  No phone, text or other services, just good internet wherever you are headed.

‍

Digital-First

Many modern MVNOs, recognizing the significant youth market of digital natives comfortable in an all-online marketplace, choose to operate their businesses almost entirely online. This provides for a smooth onboarding experience (utilizing self-service portals) and makes it easy for their customers to make plan adjustments while on the go.  Responsive chat support incorporates utilize live operators to address complicated and emotionally-laden situations effectively while AI integration delivers custom-tailored responses via chat and supports customer service agents in the background through AI-driven software. This allows MVNOs to deliver a positive experience without the high overhead infrastructure costs many MNOs face.

Launching telco brand with a right cloud-based digital platform can provide a faster, lower cost implementation. Major Malaysian operator (Celcom) wanted to quickly develop a digital telco brand that would empower its customers and connect with younger consumers. triPica speed-launched that first digital telco (Yoodo), enabling the telco-in-app with eSim in only 8 weeks.  The head of Yoodo commented that “we needed a digital and agile system that would allow this flexibility. triPica provided that!  They also enabled us to launch eSIM capability, before it was mainstream, allowing customers to register a new line from their phone within just 2 minutes.”

‍

Increased Innovation

While MNOs have the burden of legacy systems and bureaucratic processes weighing them down, MVNOs have more freedom. MVNOs can identify a new and potentially profitable trend, target a niche audience, then launch new plan features, enticing bundles, and test pricing models quickly and inexpensively. While not all tests are profitable, MVNOs are often able to reach prospective customer niches in a way MNOs tend to overlook due to technical system and staffing model limitations that often shut down strategic idea implementation too early.

MVNOs are often early adopters of innovation as well. They are all-in on eSIM due to their usage of digital BSS platforms which allow for instant provisioning and plan adjustments driven by AI plan suggestions and customer engagement in the selection process.

‍

Selling Experiences

Many MVNOs sell their services to budget buyers who many times are younger consumers. As a very mobile user base, these customers often value experiences over physical product purchases. They want to get the most out of life and see their mobile phone plan as something that can support their lifestyle.

Here’s a few implementation examples.

Deutsche Telecom offers “5G+ Gaming” to its customers across Germany, offering over 100 of the top internet games (such as Fortnite) at no charge for 6 months on the “Sora Stream” cloud platform.  

Telenor developed a strategic partnership with Netflix to stream Netflix shows over their global TV and mobile network.

Virgin Media customers can access Priority from O2 which offers access to “48-hour ticket presales to thousands of gigs and events nationwide through Priority Tickets,” VIP treatment at O2 venues, prize drawings, monthly rewards and daily deal offers.  They focus heavily on developing an experience-based connection with their customers.

‍

MNOs Can Fight Back

While MVNOs seem to have all the advantages, MNOs have some of their own. No need to just sit on the sidelines getting constantly battered and losing customers to the MVNO army. Here are some ways to fight back.

‍

Build or Acquire Digital-Only Sub-Brands

Sub-brands allow a company to reach a new demographic or affinity group without jeopardizing their primary brand. Often with significant funding advantages over MVNOs, MNOs can choose to develop and launch a secondary brand in house or identify an MVNO for acquisition. Choosing to go the development route ensures more control over how the brand fits with the primary company branding and infrastructure.  Finding an acquisition target often means understanding that the new brand will come with a company culture, IT stack, and customer journey significantly different than the MNOs.

Giffgaff is an example of a successful sub-brand (wholly owned subsidiary of Telefonica UK). It brings affordable, transparent pricing models and a community-based business model to the telecom arena.

Operating on the O2 network it was founded on eliminating the constraints of long-term contracts prevalent by MNOs at the time (2009) along with transparent pricing models without hidden fees.  

They built a culture based on corporate responsibility, sustainability (zero-landfill policy), and community. Customers benefit from data rollovers of unused data at month-end and can customize their service through plan bundles, called goodybags.

Giffgaff’s community-based model gives points to community members who answer questions (non-account related) in the community forum or who recruit others to the Giffgaff brand. These points can be redeemed for cash or for charitable donations.  

‍

Embrace eSIM

eSIM is at the center of the MVNO model due to the ability to acquire customers instantly, not having to require a prospect to see an advertisement, go to a company brick and mortar store location, talk to a customer service representative, go through a manual activation process, wasting hours of their precious time. MNOs as a group have lagged behind MVNOs in eSIM adoption due to the risk of losing customers to competitors (ease of switching with eSIM). By focusing on the downside MNOs miss out on the significant market share increases that can be had by catering to a customer group that values personal freedom and choice.

‍

Leverage a Modern BSS/OSS Infrastructure

Legacy billing, CRM, and provisioning systems often become clunky detractors from a seamless customer experience. MNOs must adopt modular, cloud-native architectures that support agile service deployment and real-time customer personalization.

triPica’s BSS platform is a proven cloud-based system that enables not just MVNOs but also MNOs to quickly launch a secondary digital-only brand without the challenges that developing a technology stack in-house or integrating legacy systems brings.

‍

Test a Wide Range of Offerings

Reduce the complexity in pricing tiers and bundles, use AI-powered tools to suggest optimal plans based on user data, and promote a transparent, user-guided buying experience that supports the marketing messaging and overall strategy of the secondary brand.

While the core product offering must be optimized, the joint venture deals are often even more important in gaining customers who stick around with you long term. By bunding in entertainment, gaming, smart home, security services, and other value-added services and events, you gain profitable customers who stay.

‍

Wrap-up

MVNOs aren’t winning through better infrastructure.  Instead, they are outpacing MNOs by being agile, keeping things simple, and developing an intimate knowledge of their best customers. To compete, MNOs must evolve from being engineering-centric giants to nimble, experience-first platforms. By doing that they can turn the tide against other MNOs and MVNO competitors. Ignore the opportunity, and they’ll find themselves losing out to the very MVNO brands who are using their networks.

Find out about how triPica can support your MNO launch a targeted digital brand quickly without the infrastructure challenges of building on a legacy in-house technology stack. triPica’s BSS platform is uniquely designed to address many of the challenges MNSs facing as they consider launching a new digital telco service. Reach out to learn more.