Everything Everywhere, the UK’s largest cellco, has been an aggressive user of MVNAs (mobile virtual network aggregators) to attract partners to its network and boost revenues. It has worked with France-based Transatel to secure MVNO pacts with companies like China Telecom, but has now bestowed its favors on rival Atmovia.
The operator claims it will be able to get new MVNOs up and running on its network in only 10 minutes using Atmovia’s ‘out of the box’ MVNA platform, which includes a self-service, branded portal for the virtual operators to roll out and manage their tariffs and services.
Atmovia’s systems is powered by technology from Nokia Siemens and claims the capacity to manage up to 7m subscribers online. The firm’s COO Richard Williams said: ‘We don’t believe that anyone else has done what we have; investing in the highest-spec, carrier grade technology for our platform, and taking the time to fully integrate it with our MNO partner.’ This, he added, would allow virtual providers to ‘react quickly to changing market conditions’.
“This is a very exciting step in the evolution of the MVNA market, and will allow small and large MVNOs alike to establish themselves in the market quickly and efficiently,” said Marc Overton, VP of wholesale and M2M at EE, in a statement. EE, a joint venture of Orange and T-Mobile, already has MVNOs including Virgin, TalkTalk Business, Ikea, China Telecom and Lycamobile. EE would not comment on how the new alliance would affect its deal with Transatel, a long established Orange partner in several European countries.