By Casey Zavaleta, Head of Mobile, gaiia
Markets worldwide are moving towards converged offers. Behind most of them sit two separate businesses, and customers can tell.
What the household actually wants
Picture a household buying connectivity because their teenager is getting a first phone. They are ready to leave the mobile provider they have used for five years. The bill keeps creeping up and customer service has been disappointing.
Their needs are not small: primary home internet, three mobile lines, a tablet plan, a smartwatch plan and backup internet, because they work from home and cannot afford to lose connection. They are already juggling too many logins and portals. What they want is one company for everything: a bundle that saves money, one portal to manage every line and one monthly bill.
The market is moving that way
Convergence has defined the Spanish market for years, with providers competing to be the household’s main connectivity partner by packaging fibre, mobile, TV and devices into a single relationship. It is just as embedded in Portugal, where operators have long competed on bundles of broadband, mobile, TV and voice.
In the US, MNOs are investing heavily in fibre to expand their fixed footprints, while cable companies are growing strongly with their MVNO offers.
The logic is simple. Convergence promises higher ARPU, lower churn and shared resources across product lines.
Why most bundles break
Yet the experience that household wants is still far from normal. Many operators run two entirely separate technology stacks for internet and mobile, with separate product catalogues, CRMs, billing systems, inventory systems and even checkouts. Few OSS/BSS platforms are built for both broadband and mobile. Even large enterprise telecoms vendors often sell two separate products under one brand.
For the operator, that means staff switching between systems to manage one customer, building and maintaining middleware to keep them talking, and never having a complete view of the subscriber. Some operators need 90 days to launch a new bundled offer, largely because of fragmented technology.
For the subscriber, the promise of simplicity collapses. They may face two checkouts, two portals and two bills, and sometimes separate care teams for internet and mobile.
Make convergence real behind the scenes
Operators serious about convergence need it where the customer cannot see it, in the operating model itself. One source of truth for each customer and every service they hold means teams stop coordinating across disconnected systems. That makes it possible to launch creative offers for new segments quickly, while giving subscribers the simplicity they were promised.
Convergence that exists only on the price list is a discount. Convergence built into operations is a competitive advantage.
Continue the conversation in Alicante
Is your converged offer a real operating model, or two businesses sharing a bill? Put the question to Casey in person at MVNO Nation Europe 2026, 3–5 November, Meliá Villaitana, Alicante:
See Casey Zavaleta at MVNO Nation Europe this November. Register now
