Imagine booking a new car and finding that it comes with built-in mobile connectivity under the car manufacturer’s brand, or signing up for a bank account and getting a companion mobile service plan from your bank. This is not a far-fetched future – it’s happening now. In 2025, eSIM technology and cloud-based telecom platforms have lowered the barrier for non-telecom companies to launch their own mobile services. The result is a convergence where “every company can become a carrier” in some form. Retailers, fintech startups, device manufacturers, even sports teams are entering the mobile service arena as new-age MVNOs. Let’s explore the trend of non-telco brands launching embedded mobile services (a key MVNO trend in 2025), how Telecom-as-a-Service (TaaS) platforms and eSIM make it possible, and the strategic value these companies find in offering connectivity.
The Rise of Non-Telco MVNOs: “Every Company a Carrier”
Mobile virtual network operators are no longer limited to telecom resellers or niche communications providers. Today, MVNOs are emerging from all industries. At the MVNOs World 2025 conference, industry leaders highlighted that the future of MVNOs lies in brands such as retailers, fintechs, and even influencers. In other words, businesses whose core wasn’t traditionally telecom are adding connectivity to their portfolio. Their goal isn’t to become full-fledged telecom companies, but to use mobile services as a value-add for their existing customers. This trend is fueled by the fact that modern MVNO enablers can offer connectivity in a turnkey fashion – effectively letting any company “rent” a slice of network and package it under their own brand.
Why would a bank or a retail chain want to be a carrier? The strategic motivations vary: some want to increase customer stickiness and loyalty, others see a new revenue stream, and some need connectivity to enhance their primary product offering (as in IoT or wearables). A few real-world examples from 2024–2025 illustrate the momentum:
- Fintech MVNOs: Digital banks and fintech apps are adding mobile plans for their users. In May 2025, German online bank N26 launched “N26 SIM,” a digitally-activated eSIM plan exclusive to its banking customers. It offers unlimited calls and free EU roaming as a perk for N26 users, initially in Germany. Likewise, UK-based fintech Revolut announced plans to launch its own mobile service after seeing success with a trial travel eSIM offering. These brands leverage their existing customer base and trust – a banking app that already manages your money might also manage your mobile plan. It’s a natural extension of their digital service ecosystem.
- Retail & Loyalty MVNOs: Large retailers have dipped into telecom before (e.g., Tesco Mobile in the UK, Kroger Wireless in the US), but the trend is accelerating and evolving. Retailers view mobile service as a loyalty play – a way to keep customers within their brand’s universe. For instance, a supermarket chain could offer a discounted mobile plan that rewards users with extra grocery points for every phone recharge. The MVNO acts as a loyalty program on steroids. Sports brands have also joined in: in April 2025, FC Barcelona launched Barça Mobile, an MVNO service for fans. It started with a global travel eSIM for roaming (covering 170+ countries) available via the club’s app, and plans to expand into full mobile service in Spain. The aim is fan engagement – Barça can offer exclusive content or merchandise deals via the mobile service, integrating it deeply into the fan experience. Early indicators show fan-based MVNOs can gain traction quickly; for example, Red Bull (known for energy drinks and sports sponsorships) launched Red Bull Mobile in Saudi Arabia and gained 1.2 million subscribers within months, bundling special perks like event access for its users.
- IoT and Device Manufacturers: Many IoT device makers or industrial players are essentially becoming specialized MVNOs to support their products. A car company like Tesla, for instance, could embed connectivity in every vehicle (through eSIM) and manage those connections centrally – providing global internet for its cars without relying on customers’ SIM cards. In fact, industry commentators suggest “Tesla could embed an MVNO directly into its cars, with global roaming built into the vehicle rather than the driver’s phone”. Likewise, wearables (smartwatches, health trackers) often come with eSIM connectivity enabled. When you buy the device, the connectivity service might be activated by the device maker. These are effectively captive MVNOs – the service exists purely to make the core product work better. The strategic value of embedded connectivity here is huge: it ensures the product has out-of-box connectivity and allows the manufacturer to control the user experience end-to-end (often even monetizing the data service or using it to upsell cloud features).
What makes all these non-traditional players capable of offering telecom services is not that they built their own network infrastructure (they haven’t), but rather the availability of MVNEs and eSIM technology to do the heavy lifting. As one Telecom-as-a-Service provider explains, “Telecom-as-a-Service empowers any business to enhance their core offering with branded mobile plans, seamlessly embedded into their device, app, or website, without needing to integrate directly with a carrier.” In essence, the complexity of running a mobile network – negotiating with carriers, complying with telecom regulations, setting up SIM provisioning, billing, etc. – can now be abstracted away by specialist platforms. This enables a hotel, a fintech app, or a logistics company to spin up an MVNO in a matter of months and at a fraction of the cost it used to require.
How eSIM and TaaS Platforms Make It Possible
Two key technologies are driving this convergence: eSIM and Telecom-as-a-Service platforms.
- eSIM (Embedded SIM): Unlike traditional SIM cards, which are physical chips you have to insert into a device, an eSIM is a programmable SIM embedded in the device’s hardware. Users (or service providers) can remotely download and activate SIM profiles. For new MVNO models, eSIM is a game-changer. It “allows devices to connect to networks without physical SIM cards”, meaning a brand can ship products or enable services that come online instantly, with no need to distribute or swap SIMs. This dramatically lowers logistical barriers. According to industry analyses, “for MVNOs, eSIMs reduce logistical costs, simplify activation, and enable new service models that weren’t possible with traditional SIM cards.” Consider a retail chain launching a mobile service: with eSIM, a customer could subscribe via an app and be up and running in minutes, no store visit required. Or consider an IoT sensor maker: they can factory-install an eSIM that, upon power-up, connects to the best available local network – no manual provisioning needed. Remote provisioning also means global scalability; a single eSIM-enabled device model can be sold worldwide, and the connectivity can be managed and updated over the air. This flexibility is crucial for brands that are not telecom experts. It’s no surprise that eSIM adoption is expanding across consumer and enterprise devices rapidly. By 2025, hundreds of millions of devices support eSIM, from smartphones and wearables to industrial equipment. And with Apple’s move to eSIM-only iPhones in some markets, consumers are getting more comfortable with eSIM usage. The bottom line: eSIM technology provides the digital glue that lets non-telcos offer connectivity as a software-like experience.
- Telecom-as-a-Service (TaaS) and MVNE Platforms: These are the cloud-based platforms that make launching an MVNO as easy as integrating an API. Companies like Telgoo5, fall in this category of MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler) or TaaS providers. They have done the hard work of connecting with carrier networks, building core network functions, billing systems, and regulatory compliance frameworks, and they offer these capabilities to brands in a modular, on-demand way. To quote a TaaS provider, “Telecom-as-a-Service…empowers any business to enhance their core offering with branded mobile plans, embedded into their product, without needing to integrate directly with a carrier.” In practice, this means a brand can work with a platform that provides a pre-integrated stack: SIM/eSIM provisioning, customer management, billing, usage analytics, etc., all accessible via APIs or white-label software. Another enabler describes “MVNO in a Box” solutions that include CRM, billing, user & SIM management, digital onboarding, eSIM apps, and analytics – everything needed to become a mobile service provider, hosted and managed for you. The benefits of this approach are significant: faster time to market (often launch in 3–6 months, versus 1–2 years traditionally), lower upfront and operating costs (no need to build a billing system from scratch or hire a full telecom engineering team), and low complexity (no deep telecom expertise needed in-house, as the technical heavy-lifting and carrier integrations are handled by the platform).
In essence, TaaS platforms act as wholesalers and orchestrators. They usually have agreements with multiple MNOs for network capacity (often across several countries or regions), so they can offer coverage that might even surpass a single network’s footprint – useful for brands with global user bases. They also ensure that regulatory requirements like SIM registration, lawful intercept, emergency calling, etc., are taken care of, which is critical for non-telco entrants who might be unfamiliar with telecom regulations. As S&P Global Market Intelligence noted, “MVNEs with multi-carrier deals across borders make it easier than ever for anyone to set up a mobile service for their brand.” This is enabling, for example, a global bank to consider offering a uniform mobile service to its employees or customers worldwide through one platform, rather than negotiating with dozens of operators.
Telgoo5, as a cloud-native BSS/OSS provider for MVNOs, fits into this picture by providing the back-end systems that a new MVNO would need. Its platform manages complex billing, real-time rating, subscriber management, and can expose these as services. For a brand entering telecom, using a solution like Telgoo5 means they get a proven, telecom-grade billing and customer management system from day one, rather than developing their own. Telgoo5 can also support eSIM workflows (as evidenced by its APIs for eSIM assignment and inventory in documentation) – which is crucial for fully digital operators. While Telgoo5 typically works behind the scenes, an enterprise could partner with a Telgoo5-powered MVNE to ensure that their new mobile service can handle everything from real-time usage notifications to flexible charging models (e.g., a fintech might want to offer a “freemium” mobile plan that upsells to premium). The agility and white-label nature of such platforms allow the non-telco brand to put their own stamp on the service, often with minimal development on their side.
In summary, the combination of eSIM + TaaS has democratized the ability to offer connectivity. A concise way to think of it is: connectivity is becoming another cloud service. Just like any developer can spin up cloud storage or payment processing via an API, now a company can plug in “connectivity” via APIs. The telecom network is abstracted, programmable, and available for anyone to resell in creative ways. This is why we’re seeing such an expansion of MVNO models across industries – it’s simply much easier and cheaper than it used to be.
Traditional MVNOs vs. Embedded Connectivity Models
It’s helpful to compare how these new embedded MVNO models differ from the traditional MVNO playbook:
- Business Purpose: A traditional MVNO typically has telecom service as its core business. It buys minutes/data wholesale and competes on price or targets a specific segment (e.g., a discount carrier for students or an ethnic-focused carrier offering cheap international calls). In contrast, an embedded MVNO (non-telco brand MVNO) treats mobile service as a value-added service to support its core business. The goal isn’t necessarily to profit from telecom itself, but to boost the primary business (be it banking, retail sales, devices, etc.) via increased engagement and convenience. Success for an embedded MVNO might be measured in higher customer retention or product usage, rather than subscribers gained for the mobile plan alone.
- Customer Acquisition: Traditional MVNOs often have to acquire customers from scratch in a competitive telecom market (meaning marketing spend, dealers or online sales, SIM distribution). Embedded models, however, leverage an existing customer base. A bank launching an MVNO will likely convert a portion of its banking customers; a sports club MVNO instantly markets to its fan community. This embedded customer base lowers acquisition cost and can yield high adoption rates if the offer is well-aligned (e.g., fans enthusiastically adopting a club-branded plan that gives them exclusive perks).
- Distribution & SIM Deployment: Traditional operators needed physical SIM cards, retail stores or shipping logistics, and a lot of overhead to activate users. New models mostly use digital distribution via eSIM. A user can download an app or use an existing app, sign up and activate service in minutes. No physical touchpoint required. This means an MVNO can scale geographically without physical presence – critical for global brands. It also enables innovative distribution; for instance, a travel booking site can upsell a travel eSIM at the point of purchase (completely online) – something a traditional MVNO with physical SIMs couldn’t as easily do. Devices can be sold “connectivity-included.”
- Offer Design: Traditional MVNOs often resell standard plans (with maybe some niche perks). The new entrants can be more creative, bundling connectivity with other services. We see converged offerings: e.g., a streaming service could offer a mobile plan that comes with zero-rated data for its own content; or an insurance company MVNO might bundle an emergency phone plan with every policy. These combos strengthen the overall value proposition of the primary product. Also, many non-telco MVNOs choose simpler or more flexible plans (since they are not aiming to maximize telecom revenue). They might offer, say, one unlimited plan or a very transparent prepaid model to align with their brand’s values (simplicity, trust).
- Scale and Economics: Traditional MVNOs need a certain scale to be profitable as standalone businesses (to cover wholesale costs, ops, etc.). Embedded MVNOs can be sustainable at smaller scales because the costs are lower (thanks to TaaS platforms) and because success might be defined differently. A company might be perfectly happy with 50k mobile subscribers if those are highly engaged core customers – even if the MVNO itself only breaks even, the lift in core business revenue could justify it. That said, some new MVNO brands have scaled impressively (recall the Red Bull Mobile example with over 1 million users). In general though, the telecom-as-a-service model allows a “pay as you grow” approach, with shared infrastructure costs, so brands can start small and scale up without large sunk costs.
- Operational Focus: Running a traditional MVNO meant heavy operational involvement – managing SIM stock, running network elements (HLR/HSS, etc.) in some cases, running a customer support center for telecom issues. With modern enablers, much of this is offloaded. Brands focus on customer experience, marketing, and front-end integration, while the MVNE handles the nitty-gritty of telecom operations. As Mobilise noted, these turnkey models are “perfect for brands focused on customer experience and growth, not telecom operations.” This is a fundamentally different mindset from a legacy MVNO, which essentially was a telecom operation.
In a nutshell, traditional MVNOs were telecom-centric businesses, whereas embedded MVNOs are user-centric offerings that weave connectivity into a broader product/service. Both have to ultimately deliver good connectivity, but their DNA and metrics of success differ. The convergence we talk about is not that every company becomes a full telco, but that every company can incorporate connectivity into its strategy without losing focus on its main industry.
Below is a quick comparison list highlighting differences:
- Launch Time: Traditional MVNO – often 1-2 years to launch (negotiations, setup) vs. Embedded MVNO – as fast as a few months with MVNO-in-a-box.
- Upfront Investment: Traditional – high CAPEX (network core, IT, SIM distribution) vs. New – low CAPEX, mostly OPEX model with cloud services.
- Distribution: Traditional – physical SIMs, dealers/retail, separate brand marketing. New – digital-first, eSIM downloads, leverage existing apps/branches for distribution.
- Core Value Proposition: Traditional – price or niche features (e.g., cheap international calls). New – synergy with core product (e.g., free connectivity with device, or loyalty rewards with usage).
- Operational Demands: Traditional – needs telecom expertise in-house (for regulatory, tech support, etc.). New – relies on MVNE/TaaS provider for telecom expertise, the brand’s team remains focused on their industry domain.
- Branding: Traditional – MVNO brand may be independent or a sub-brand of an MNO; the brand identity is about being a telco (even if niche). New – brand is usually an existing non-telco brand; the mobile service is an extension of that brand’s customer experience (e.g., “X Bank Mobile” feels like a feature of X Bank, not a separate telco).
Both models ultimately serve consumers connectivity, but the embedded model is highly versatile and often more personalized to a context. This is one reason we’re seeing a proliferation of these offerings. It aligns with broader consumer trends: people like services that are convenient and integrated. If your smartwatch just works out-of-the-box with a pre-loaded connection, that’s a huge value. If your favorite retailer offers you a mobile plan that gives you shopping discounts, you might choose it for the added value beyond just data and minutes.
Conclusion: MVNO Convergence and the Road Ahead
The concept of “every company a carrier” is no longer hyperbole. As we’ve seen in our previous blog, MVNO trends in 2025 point to a diverse landscape of providers: banks, retail chains, tech giants, startups, and even sports clubs, all offering some form of mobile connectivity. This convergence is driven by the need for ubiquitous connectivity in every product and service. In a hyper-connected world, businesses view connectivity as another tool to engage customers and add value – much like mobile apps became a must-have a decade ago, mobile services are becoming a differentiator now.
The rise of eSIM and telecom-as-a-service platforms has lowered entry barriers dramatically. It’s akin to how cloud computing enabled a wave of new online services without each needing to build data centers. Now any company can plug into telecom infrastructure without owning cell towers. We are likely to see many more creative MVNO models: think “Travel MVNOs” embedded in booking sites, IoT MVNOs run by industrial equipment suppliers ensuring their machines stay connected, or community-based MVNOs for specific interest groups. The lines between telecom and other industries will blur, giving end-users more integrated choices. For consumers and enterprise users, this often means more convenient connectivity options (and potentially cost savings or unique benefits). For the telecom industry, it means new wholesale revenue streams and partnerships – a reason why many carriers are welcoming MVNO collaborations in non-traditional sectors.
Telcos and MVNOs must adapt by embracing this ecosystem mindset. Collaboration is key: MNOs providing flexible wholesale deals, MVNEs providing agile platforms, and brands bringing their customer relationships and innovation. Telgoo5 and similar platforms will continue to play a pivotal role in bridging the gap, ensuring that even as every company can be a carrier, the end-user experience remains high-quality and compliant with telecom standards.
In closing, the convergence powered by eSIM is turning the telecom model on its head. The question for a business leader in 2025 is no longer “why would we offer mobile services?” but rather “what would a mobile service enable for our customers and our growth?”. As connectivity becomes an embedded feature everywhere, those who leverage it cleverly will stand out. Whether it’s a seamless global SIM in your next car, a special mobile plan for fans of a brand, or a fintech app that also keeps you connected, the MVNO universe is expanding across industries. With the right platforms enabling quick launches and the promise of new revenue or engagement, we truly are entering an era where every company can be (sort of) a carrier. And if you’re considering that path, the technology and partners (from eSIM providers to Telgoo5’s of the world) are ready to make it a reality in weeks, not years.
Contact sales@telgoo5.com to learn more!