Diversification and customer experience should be the North Star of MVNOs, according to Ryan O’Hanlon of MDS Global and Yaron Assabi of Digital Solutions Group and subsidiary MVNE (Pty) Ltd.

• Leverage greater network exposure by partnering more strategically with MNO
• Unlock new revenue streams through opportunities in private networks, the growing eSIM travel market, and value-added B2B services.
• Diversify beyond connectivity by adopting proven business models demonstrated by successful African MVNOs
• Prioritise frictionless digital onboarding to improve customer conversion, reduce churn, and enhance the user experience.
• Harness AI-powered CVM models to enable faster data-driven decision making for MVNOs.

With MVNO service offerings increasingly at risk of commoditisation, and a potentially ruinous focus on price competition at the expense of meaningful differentiation, Ryan O’Hanlon, VP of Global Sales & Marketing at MDS Global, and Yaron Assabi, CEO of DSG and MVNE (Pty) Ltd , took to the stage at MVNO Nation Live 2025 to challenge conventional thinking and highlight new opportunities for growth.

In their presentation, Accelerating MVNO Onboarding and Adoption: A Successful Partnering of an Enablement Suite with Real-Life Experience to Unlock MVNO Success, Yaron Assabi and Ryan O’Hanlon argued that product differentiation and customer experience should be the twin North Stars for every MVNO.

They highlighted how operators can unlock new revenue opportunities by taking advantage of network exposure through APIs, enabling them to better monetise their network investments.

Key growth opportunities include:
• Delivering private network solutions for enterprise customers.
• Capitalising on the rapidly growing eSIM travel market.
• Expanding into B2B services with value-added connectivity offerings.

O’Hanlon also highlighted the growing opportunity to serve the OTT market. By developing services for OTT providers, MVNOs can diversify their offerings, create new revenue streams, and reduce their reliance on price-based competition.

To make the most of the opportunities on offer, it will be necessary for MVNOs to “break the shackles” that sometimes limits their scope of action.

Key to enabling success, he said, is to take advantage of the capabilities that MNOs have opened to third-party providers while focusing intensely on delivering a high-quality customer experience. That involves supporting the customer journey from acquisition through to provisioning, charging and billing.

“These growth opportunities introduce new business models and multi-dimensional relationships which add complexity, but also bring opportunities when the right functionality is in place to support them”, O’Hanlon emphasised.

He further stated, “Real success means moving away from being a commodity price jockey to becoming an innovator”.

The DStv Internet Example

Assabi, founder of MVNE, drew on the company’s experience of deploying multiple MVNOs to demonstrate how strategic differentiation drives success. He highlighted its work with Canal+, the owner of pay-TV operator MultiChoice’s DStv service, which operates its own MVNO on MTN’s network.

DStv Internet offers a range of fixed-LTE wireless internet and data packages bundled with WiFi routers. Assabi said that because of the MVNO’s success in differentiating its offering through a brand centred on streaming video, DStv Internet is now responsible for 9% of all of MTN’s data traffic.

Another example of successful differentiation is an MVNO supported by MVNE that focuses exclusively on the African agricultural sector, delivering services tailored to the needs of farmers. Assabi said that this offering had transformed the payment system used by farmer subscribers by enabling them to transfer money digitally, helping to eliminate crime where cash was kept on farms.

The MVNO model is also enabling the growth of smart farming through IoT-powered irrigation systems that combine smart metering with automation to improve water management and operational efficiency.

“Smart farming is already a reality. Many irrigation systems are using smart metering and automation powered by the Internet of Things,” said Assabi.

He also highlighted livestock tracking as another agricultural use case. By equipping cattle with collars containing embedded SIMs, farmers can use the mobile network to monitor the location of their livestock in real time, improving both security and operational oversight.

MVNE has also enabled the launch of an MVNO covering applications in cryptocurrency and traditional banking, providing blended financial services including insurance and mobile banking.

“These examples show that MVNOs and VNOs are no longer side projects – they have become strategic digital brands,” said Assabi, before outlining what he believes are the critical success factors for MVNOs in Africa and other markets.

According to Assabi, competing on price alone is an unsustainable strategy. Instead, long-term success depends on building a differentiated value proposition that addresses the specific needs of a clearly defined customer segment.

“If you’re just going to compete on price, it will be very difficult. But if you can create a value proposition that resonates deeply with your target market, as with the farming example and OTT streaming, you have a strong opportunity to capture market share and build closer customer relationships,” he said.

AI-Powered Marketing

Assabi noted that competing with well-resourced MNOs and their substantial marketing budgets requires a different approach. Rather than trying to outspend incumbents, MVNOs should focus on highly personalised marketing, supported by AI-driven tools and data insights.

AI now enables operators to develop high-quality marketing content faster and more cost-effectively, while machine learning improves customer targeting and conversion rates. For VNOs, which often operate with even leaner resources, adopting these capabilities is even more critical to competing effectively.

Customer Experience Essential for Success

“Customer experience is the most important critical success factor for any business, not just MVNOs, but for virtual network operators it’s competitive. VNOs are far more agile and can serve customers better than the MNOs, who have a much larger customer base,” he said.

Assabi said that, when designing their customer value proposition, it is key for MVNOs to ask themselves if their offering is sufficiently differentiated – something that will enable them to compete on value rather than price.

Assabi also recommended validating an MVNO offering through an internal soft launch before entering the broader market. This enables organisations to test the customer experience, gather valuable feedback, and refine the value proposition before a full commercial rollout.

For the large enterprises MVNE typically works with, an MVNO is not a standalone business but a strategic extension of an existing brand, designed to strengthen customer engagement and expand the company’s service offering.

At a practical level, creating a friction-free onboarding process for customers is critical. Data shows that half of the first 90-day churn experienced by operators is related to onboarding issues, said Assabi. This is something that is being made easier by technological advances. “With eSIMs it’s really easy – three clicks and you should have your eSIM,” he said.

Being a data-driven organisation will help MVNOs to personalise the customer experience and manage CRM costs more efficiently, he added. “The main objective is to have a single view of the customer and to present a single view of your organisation to that customer,” said Assabi.

In addition to delivering personalised services to slow down churn, the MVNO will also have a business requirement to limit CRM costs. Data can help here too by enabling MVNOs to provide on-demand CRM, increasing and reducing the number of agents available to match periods of peak demand.

Competing on Value

Using the example of the Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile in the US, O’Hanlon said that creating personalised experiences enables MVNOs to convert basic tier customers to higher value ones. “Customer Value Management helps MVNOs target high-valued customers with tailored retention strategies using data-driven insights to produce a great return on investment and improved segmentation leads to more relevant marketing and higher conversion rates”.

Using AI-powered CVM models to calculate the lifetime value of customers will enable operators to take decisions more quickly and segment their base more effectively, he said, adding that tapping agentic AI to manage different processes using customer data can help significantly in this context.

The strategic role of value-added services in MVNO success is really about increasing ARPU by adding value to the customer based on their own requirements.

The nature of these value-added services will vary by market and customer segment. However, the drivers of differentiation are evolving, with successful MVNOs increasingly shifting their focus from content-based offerings to mobile financial services and other high-value digital solutions. The overarching lesson is clear: sustainable growth comes from competing on value, not price.

This is one chapter from Beyond Connectivity: The Future of MVNOs, our eBook covering insights from MVNO Nation Live 2025.

Want the full picture? Download the complete eBook here 

Want to be part of the conversation? Join us at MVNO Nation Europe 2026, 3-5 November in Alicante, Spain, where many of the voices featured in this eBook return to explore these themes in person.