The Envelope Please! The 3rd Annual Jonny Awards!
As 2024 comes to a close, the most important part of my article today is to say THANK YOU to all of Atrium Unlimited’ s clients, customers, suppliers, and friends. Atrium Unlimited Consulting would not be here without your tremendous support. From everyone at Atrium, THANK YOU for a Great 2024!
2024 was another incredible year for wireless and mobile accomplishments and as I said last year at this time, “the best is yet to come!”
The wireless industry had another solid growth year in 2024, and I’m happy to announce that the Third Annual Jonny Awards has returned! Named for yours truly, and based on very unscientific research, the Third Annual Jonny Awards are meant solely to have some fun and are the creation of this author.
AND THE WINNERS ARE:
As was the case last year, the only qualification to be included in these awards was to do something newsworthy in 2024 that affected or will affect, the MVNO landscape. So, with that, here we go again. And remember, if you feel you were slighted, work harder in 2025, call me for advice and recognize that all awards are given with our best intentions.
Here Comes the Crypto Award
Crypto Currency is making a comeback. In fact, a few new MVNOs are making crypto the centerpiece of their “differentiation,” offering crypto type rewards for using their service. Fliggs Mobile, based in Zurich Switzerland, just launched in the United States on Black Friday. They state that “Subscribers Get 5% cashback with a single plan, and for two or more plans it goes to 10% on each. “
Bitcoin for Everyone!
Fliggs is 100% digital and they claim that you can get up and running through their App in minutes. Watch out for Aleks Ahrens and her team as they try to conquer America with this amazing offer. They did win “Best MVNO” at the recent MVNO Nation LIVE event this past November in Valencia Spain.
Not to be outdone, John Shave is launching Stack Mobile in early 2025, offering 10%/15% crypto cashback rewards on single/multiple line customers respectively. One of the many features of Stack Mobile is Transparent Pricing: “Enjoy clear, upfront pricing with no hidden fees or surprises on your bill.”
Best of luck to all of the new crypto currency focused MVNOs this year. Of course you’ll have to pay catchup to Helium Mobile, one of the pioneer’s in this space that now boasts of having over 110k subscribers just one year after launching out of beta.
Best Carrier Partner for MVNOs -T-Mobile Wholesale
For the second consecutive year, we award T-Mobile the Best Carrier Partner and provider to the MVNOs. T-Mobile continues to attract more companies to direct relationships and continues their growth. T-Mobile Wholesale launched Your Name, Our Wireless – their first end-to-end managed and operated solution for custom-branded wireless. T-Mobile Wholesale recognizes that “launching a wireless brand can be complex and challenging.,” and they make it easy for the non-wireless expert to launch a wireless service.
Congratulations to Dan Thygesen and his wholesale team for leading the way amongst all of the national carriers.
Best Wireless Association of the Year – NWIDA
We have a three repeat winner for this award with The National Wireless Independent Dealer Association continuing to advocate for the “little guy” throughout the year, again with their fight for Right to Repair, setting up a repository for displaced employees and getting the most out of their vendor partners to support the independent dealers with deep discounts on everything needed to run a store. Adam Wolf continues to grow NWIDA and will continue to be the voice for the independent dealer.
Best Dealer and MVNO Trade Show – All Wireless and Prepaid Expo
Our other repeat winner is The All Wireless and Prepaid Expo which again set new records with over 5,000 attendees with over 200 booths this past August in Las Vegas. Robin Tobias and her team have made their event the “must-go-to” trade show in the wireless space and it will only continue to get bigger and better.
Best Advertising – Consumer Cellular
There was a lot of cellular and wireless advertising in 2024 as has been the case for a very long time. The difference this year, however, is that many of 2023’s MVNOs are simply not an MVNO anymore, but a brand of the large carriers. With T-Mobile closing the purchase of their MVNOs Mint and Ultra in early 2024, it’s difficult to let them compete in any of the MVNO categories. The same goes for Boost (owned by DISH/Echostar), Cricket (AT&T) Metro by T-Mobile and probably the whole Tracfone suite and Total (Verizon).
Please see my article of August 2nd, 2024 on this subject: “When Do We Stop calling Tracfone, Metro, Boost, etc. MVNOs and Start Referring to them as Brands?”
Not taking anything away from Consumer Cellular, we would have named them the winner of the MVNO with the best advertising regardless of these acquisitions. After collaborating with Jeff Moore, Principal of Wave7 Research, e agreed that Consumer Cellular’s omni-channel approach with spokesperson Ted Danson, social media and the opening of their 30th retail location hands down made them the choice for this year’s award. Congrats again to Ed Evans and his entire team!
Most Disruptive MVNO -US Mobile
Wow! US Mobile has made some noise this year, truly disrupting the wireless industry! With access to all three networks, great pricing, student discounts, and a simple, totally digital activations process with rate plans filled with all kinds of extras, US Mobile is the recipient of our first Most Disruptive MVNO Award. And it’s working! This summer US Mobile reported that it had over 500,000 subscribers on their networks. Congratulations to Ahmed Khattak and the entire US Mobile Team!
MVNO(s) of the Year – Charter & Comcast
Last year I said when awarding Charter and Xfinity the MVNO of the year award for their Spectrum and Xfinity brands that they would “continue to cement themselves as major players in the MVNO space.” Spectrum and Charter now boast 8.8 million and 7.2 million subscribers respectively. WOW! 16 million mobile subscribers with a lot of opportunity in their overall cable subscriber bases. And, out of the five largest wireless players; T-Mobile, Charter, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, they now account for over 40% of 2024 net subscribers through Q3, 2024.
Most Valuable Player of The Year – MobileX
A lot of people doubted that Peter Adderton and his team could pull off using Artificial Intelligence to help right-size your wireless data bill. Not only did MobileX have a successful 2023 launch, but they also secured space in thousands of Walmart stores within six months of getting started. The 30 second elevator pitch that he told me – “why would you pay your electric company for 60 kilowatts a month when you’re only using 30?” resonates now more than ever. Plus, their marketing on social media and tie-ins with the X-Games and their iconic speedboat videos are bringing more customers to their unique service offerings. Congratulations to the entire MobileX Team!
And Looking Forward To 2025
Most Anticipated MVNO 2025 – NY Mobile
New York Mobile (nymobile.com) is primed to burst into the MVNO scene in early 2025 as a unique wireless provider focused both on the New York market as well as nationwide with access to over 60 million numbers outside of New York State. It combines the ability for subscribers to license or purchase highly sought-after numbers for mobile and VoIP services. NY Mobile’s vision is to connect and empower individuals and businesses and their brands to the communities that they represent. Area code and number exhaustion have now met their match with NY Mobile’s offering. Fugeddaboudit, bring it on NY Mobile!
Happy Holidays!
So, that wraps up 2024. If you care to comment on any of our picks or want to suggest other categories, find me at atriumunlimited.com and fill out our Contact Form. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did putting it together again.
Atrium Unlimited Consulting looks forward to serving the MVNO and Wireless business in 2025. Our podcast, The Boon of Wireless launched in early 2024 and was recently called “the fastest growing podcast in the wireless industry.” Our thirty minutes twice a month broadcasts feature leaders from our industry speaking frankly about current events and insights and analysis affecting the wireless business. Look for The Boon of Wireless streaming on various platforms and hosted by yours truly. I hope you will find it both educational and entertaining!
Again, here’s wishing everyone a very Safe, Happy, and Healthy Holiday Season. Hope to see a lot of you at CES in Las Vegas and I look forward to supporting our industry in 2025!
Good Selling!
Jon