The difference between MNOs and MVNOs – and what does it mean for IoT deployments
by Webbing Team
When choosing a cellular connectivity provider for their IoT deployments, enterprises often face a choice between partnering with an MNO or an MVNO. What is the difference between MNOs and MVNOs, other than a letter in the abbreviation?
Understanding MNO and MVNO
MNO stands for Mobile Network Operator, a wireless telecommunications carrier that provides cellular connectivity services to individuals and enterprises. To do that, MNOs build and operate mobile network infrastructure, which includes a radio access network – the visible cell towers responsible for connecting devices, and a core network that handles the most essential behind-the-scenes functions like traffic routing, authentication, authorization and billing. We explained core network infrastructure in more detail in one of our previous posts.
MVNOs, or Mobile Virtual Network Operators, are a different type of telecommunication provider: they offer cellular connectivity using MNO infrastructure. Depending on the degree to which they rely on MNO networks, virtual operators are divided into three general categories:
Brand Resellers
These companies do not own any infrastructure and are fully dependent on MNO networks. Brand resellers only control their brand and distribution channels, while all the technical side of their business is provided by a partner MNO.
Light MVNOs
This business model implies that a connectivity provider owns some elements of the core network, such as billing or customer management, but still relies on the MNO for critical functions like routing and authentication. Light MVNOs may have more control over back-office operations and value-added services compared to Brand Resellers, but their dependence on MNO’s core infrastructure can limit their service offering.
Full MVNOs
Full MVNOs are the operators that build and manage their own core network and only use MNO radio access to connect devices. Building a core network is demanding in terms of investment and expertise, but it makes Full MVNOs more flexible in their connectivity offering and allows them to adapt to the specific needs of customers’ use cases.
What is best for IoT connectivity?
MNOs, as the owners of full infrastructure stack and spectrum licenses, have many advantages. They have direct access to radio networks and radio spectrum, they can offer end-to-end service and national roaming. Some of the most progressive MNOs may even provide faster access to cutting-edge 5G features. However, in many cases MVNOs, especially Full MVNOs or end-to-end MVNOs, might be a better option for IoT deployments. Here’s why:
Multi-Network Access
MNOs usually lock you into just their own network, even if signal quality is poor in certain locations. MVNOs, in contrast, have access to multiple MNO networks – either through roaming or multi-IMSI/eSIM capabilities. That allows IoT devices to connect to the strongest available signal, which is critical for global deployments, rural or remote areas and mission-critical use cases.
Core Network Control
Full MVNOs run their own core infrastructure — including data routing, SIM management, and policies, which gives them more flexibility to set custom APNs, optimize traffic routing and enable smart policies for different device types. This level of customization is typically not possible with most MNOs – unless you’re a massive enterprise customer.
Cost Efficiency
Due to their flexibility, Full MVNOs typically offer better pricing models, often built around IoT use cases, adapting to certain requirements such as low-data-rate devices like sensors or trackers, bursty traffic, or offering custom billing plans (per-device, pooled, or event-based). MNOs usually tend to apply standard consumer or business mobile pricing, which doesn’t scale well for thousands (or millions) of IoT devices with low or irregular usage.
Global IoT Deployments
MNOs usually operate only in their home market and roam internationally, which may lead to higher costs, regulatory challenges and network prioritization issues. MVNOs typically aggregate access to multiple MNOs across different countries under one SIM/eSIM profile, providing simplified logistics with one SKU for global rollout, compliance with local regulations without needing multiple contracts and reduced roaming costs through localized IMSIs.
Time-to-Market and Service Agility
The very strengths that make MNOs powerful — scale, infrastructure, and legacy — are also the source of their limitations. Their size brings reach and power, but on the other hand it makes them slow to adapt, resistant to change, and burdened by bureaucracy. MVNOs are more nimble, they can integrate quickly, offer open APIs, and don’t require months of negotiation. So if a customer wants to launch new SKUs, test new features, or change something in their product, MVNOs will likely move faster than MNOs.
All these advantages of MVNOs connectivity services can be highly beneficial in real-life use cases. For instance, in rural areas where smart meters or agriculture equipment are deployed, they can help ensure better uptime by offering multi-network fallback, automatically switching between networks to maintain a reliable connection, even in remote locations. For fleet tracking across borders, MVNOs simplify operations with one SIM that offers local rates in different countries and ensures compliance with regulations. In asset tracking in the logistics industry, MVNOs can provide low data usage plans and global coverage, keeping assets connected and traceable while optimizing costs. For industrial IoT or private networks, Full MVNOs allow businesses to customize their APNs and manage their core network to offer secure, optimized edge routing for efficient data management.
Webbing’s Connectivity Solutions
Webbing offers global connectivity services that ensure access to reliable and high-quality internet, with low latency and the best of class coverage. It provides secure and continuous internet connection, delivering a streamlined, centralized, and scalable means of deploying, controlling and monitoring all kinds of devices at any location and any SIM form factor with full Remote SIM Provisioning services capabilities included.
Webbing is a full MVNO and has a fully redundant distributed core network infrastructure with data centers on every continent, local breakouts and multiple network solutions. It makes IoT deployments of any scale and any configuration feasible in the shortest possible time, no matter what geographically specific architecture they may require.
As such, Webbing’s network is well suited to support all kinds of use cases, including mission-critical, high-data consumption scenarios. It helps us provide stable connection, high data throughput, consistent bandwidth and low latency to all devices.
In combination with 600+ partnership agreements with mobile network operators all over the world our core network gives access to infrastructure in any region and eliminates the problem of regulatory compliance. It allows for all types of localization – from IP traffic that remains in the country to designated profiles for emergency calls. Webbing can seamlessly localize deployments utilizing Remote SIM Provisioning even in heavily regulated markets.
Our eSIM solution ensures failover connectivity with the capability of using multiple mobile carrier profiles, easily changing carriers at any time with zero integration, and an option to fall back from a failing profile to a different profile without any need to communicate with a remote server or deal with multiple SIM cards.
Webbing also offers a centralized way to manage devices throughout their lifecycle. It allows for defining business rules that enable devices to change the carrier independently in case of location change or connectivity loss, and provides visibility to profile usage and network events. This helps manage connected devices in bulks, easily scale global IoT deployments and monitor data usage of each device.
We tailor our connectivity offering not only based on how much the customer pays for a terabyte of data transmitted, or on the locations where IoT devices are deployed, but rather aiming at overall optimization of the total cost of operations for the client.
Our solutions provide stable and reliable connectivity with the benefits of roaming with multiple carrier options in every country, and seamless transition between carriers, while maintaining low rates and low latency on a global scale with a single SIM.
Contact us today to learn how our connectivity solutions can help you overcome connectivity challenges, optimize costs and reduce time-to-market for your IoT deployments.
