GSM Nation has spent the last two years selling unlocked smartphones through its online retail portal, and in the process has steered tens of thousands of customers toward contract-free voice and data plans offered by the newly emerging class of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). GSM Nation CEO and co-founder, Ahmed Khattak, however, is getting tired of handing off the potentially lucrative service business. So this fall GSM Nation plans to launch its own MVNO.
For those unfamiliar, an MVNO is a sans-network operator that resells the data and voice services of a major carrier. What will set GSM Nation apart from the growing hordes of MVNOs popping up on AT&T and T-Mobiles’ networks, is its own already highly developed retail business. It’s not quite Amazon or Best Buy, but it sells more 200 than different models of unlocked smartphones and tablets on its website, all of which are sourced from directly from manufacturers or from global distributors. It buys its iPhones from a reseller in Korea and imports Samsung Galaxy phones from Latin America.
“No other MVNO has these types of relationships,” Khattak said. Typically an MVNO will source a handful of new or refurbished smartphones from manufacturers or resellers, but for high-end devices like the iPhone they only supply SIM cards and rely on the customer to bring their own handset, he added. “We will be the first MVNO to sell high-end unlocked handsets straight from the manufacturer,” Khattak said.
Lots a data and a modicum of voice
GSM Nation has decided to partner with T-Mobile, tapping into the operator’s high-bandwidth HSPA+ networks and possibly even its future LTE network. Those data speeds are of particular importance to the company because it plans to target more sophisticated users who live for their data services and spend relatively little time talking on their phones.
Khattak said GSM Nation’s cheapest plan will run about $ 33 and include roughly 250 voice minutes and 2 GB of data. Customers will be able to buy bigger buckets of data and even a truly unlimited plan at higher tier plans. They can purchase more minutes, as well, but Khattak believes those voice-centric customers will be the minority. “Smartphone users are already migrating their voice use to Skype and other VoIP services,” he said. “I doubt there will be that much demand.”
The approach is the opposite of the one taken by Verizon. The new shared plans it unveiled this week give customers an unlimited amount of a services consumers are using less, voice and messages, while giving them relatively less of the service they’re consuming more, data. GSM Nation will reveal more specifics on its plan pricing as it gets closer to its planned launch in four to five months, Khattak said. It has the paperwork with T-Mobile in order and its back end infrastructure. It only has to bring its customer service – which is now focused on selling devices, not service plans – up to par.
Why go MVNO?
GSN Nation is a small operation. It brought in about $ 35 million in revenues last year primarily from business customers, Khattak said. But the costs of creating an MVNO aren’t huge. GSM Nation is funding its new venture from the profits of its retail business and $ 700,000 in seed funding, $ 200,000 of which came from Khattak’s dentist.
It may not be a big company, but its ambitions are. Khattak said he and co-founder Junaid Shams created the company with the idea of replicating in the U.S. the mobile retail model of Europe, where most customers don’t buy their phones from their carriers. Khattak finds the idea of phone subsidies abhorrent, not only because they lock customers into long-term contracts, but also because they come part and parcel will higher plan rates, which ultimately cost customers far more than they save on the initial phone discount.
“In five to six years we’re going to be in the same place Europe is in,” Khattak said. “We’ll be buying our phones and SIM cards separately.”
One of the key features of the GSM Nation retail portal is savings calculator which shows customers just how much they would be saving in plan fees if they switched to a contract-free prepaid plan. It refers its customers to the cheapest carriers for any given voice and data plan, and in the case of MVNOs Red Pocket and Simple Mobile resells their SIM cards.
With the MVNO’s launch, GSM Nation will, of course, prioritize its own mobile plans over its competitors, but Khattak said it will keep some separation between the MVNO and retail businesses. Customers can buy an unlocked smartphone and leave, taking their device to whatever carrier they chose. GSM Nation will also sell straight up SIM cards to any customer bringing their own device. In fact, Khattak hopes to see a lot of former AT&T customers bring their newly unlocked iPhones to his company.
For now, GSM Nation will continue sending business to AT&T MVNOs like Red Pocket and H2O Wireless for the simple reason it has to. T-Mobile is in the middle of a large-scale network conversion, which, once complete, will plant its HSPA+ network firmly in the PCS band. The transition is gradual, starting with an initial upgrade of 2500 cell sites in July, but by the time GSM Nation launches this fall, a good deal of T-Mobile’s 3G network will still be off limits to most smartphones –including the iPhone.
GSM Nation plans to solve that problem in part by focusing initially on its stock of pentaband phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that can work on any GSM operator’s 3G network as well as the smaller set of T-Mobile optimized quad-band phones such as the HTC One S. For customers who buy an iPhone or any other smartphone that doesn’t support T-Mobile’s Advanced Wireless services airwaves, GSM Nation will advise them in which markets they will be able to receive a 3G signal, steering them toward an AT&T MVNO if they’re outside of coverage. The process may be a bit awkward, but it will only be temporary. T-Mobile will likely complete the PCS conversion long before it launches its new LTE network in 2013.
Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Reno Martin; Image courtesy of Flickr user mroach
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