By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 09:09:26 +0000

I surpose the question is one of deffinition of an MVNO. If the offering is little more than a rebranding of existing offerings then I have to say that other than lower user costs then an MVNO is no more than a service provider. Thus as a service provider it could operate like ISPs and thus give access to more content.
However for this to happen we would have to see an improve on the current micro browsers alongside the adoption of .mobi. I am a user of the Opera browser and I have to say that it works very well on both my Symbian based handset and my Laptop. But I still get prolems with sites that are not configured for a device that is used by only 1% of the internet users!
However is a company was to offer a genuine MVNO we could see a difference in the user experience, say on that takes a broadband service and makes it mobile. Such a concept limits the number of MVNO services to a small group that owns/controls content such as Disney. The question then becomes one of could SKY/Fox get enough of its subscribers to switch networks for the business to stand alone. One of the drivers would have to be that you are in a walled garden just as some users were happy to stay inside AOL for example at the start of ISPs.
As more high end phones are in circulation the yes we will see better MMS services as it is just a question of economies of scale. However how you view such services will change to a question of on v off network. The key is that todate the networks have managed to charge users regardless of source but with the arrival of all you can eat services they need to protect revenues. This being the case the Network owners as less happy to sign deals that include the HLR data that would allow improved services.

Comments on: mvnos – good or bad?

By: Ian Wood