New MVNO Zer01 Mobile plans to launch on April 1 what it calls a truly unlimited voice and data offering on smart phones for $70 per month without a contract.
The company says it is using a type of roaming agreement to tunnel from AT&T Mobility's network into its own IP backbone thus realizing savings by eliminating the costs associated with circuit-switched voice calling. The company has a proprietary VoIP application that runs on Windows Mobile 6 phones but will work on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Java and jailbroken iPhone phones in the future. The application integrates into a device's dialer app to allow the end user to dial from the phone's keypad without launching a separate application.
Interestingly, Zer01 Mobile says it is able to deliver VoIP over slower EDGE and GPRS networks from AT&T and T-Mobile using certain algorithms that address latency issues. Another interesting part of the MVNO is the fact that the company isn't buying wholesale minutes from AT&T or T-Mobile. It is interconnecting with the networks using roaming agreements. Each device receives a fixed IP address and opens a VPN tunnel to the company's servers.
The interconnect agreements also allow the company to circumvent the operators' 5 GB per month data caps to offer data plans without any limits.
For more:
- see PC Magazine
Related articles:
Virgin Mobile reports $4.4M Q4 loss, but boosts revenue
Nokia launches high-end MVNO in Japan
The top five most innovative MVNOs in Europe
Mark Lowenstein: The Emergence of MVNO 2.