Why broadband providers are going mobile
The home internet market is saturated. There are almost no new connections, and subscriber growth has nowhere left to come from. What remains is earning more from each household and losing fewer customers.
Large operators already sell convergent bundles and use them to retain subscribers. Without mobile service, a regional provider has nothing to answer these bundles with except price.
The MVNO model removes the main barrier: building a network. The provider rents the radio network from a host operator and keeps the brand, the product and the customer. In the Light MVNO model, a launch costs from a few thousand dollars, and most of that money goes to marketing, not hardware.
For more information — Turnkey MVNO Launch.
A growing market with room for new entrants
The global MVNO market was worth US$105.5 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach US$157.2 billion by 2030, a CAGR of 6.9%. Several forces push it forward:
- eSIM. Subscribers switch providers without a physical card, and online activation shortens the path from ad to active line.
- 5G. New speeds and network capabilities open niche offers that MNOs do not address themselves.
- IoT and M2M. Every connected device needs a SIM profile, which creates demand for specialised connectivity brands.
- Ecosystems. Banks, retailers and marketplaces embed connectivity in their platforms as part of a wider service.
Fixed operators are a natural fit for this market. They already own the customer relationship, the billing, the support desk and, in many cases, the IP core.
What convergence gives subscribers and operators
The main operator gain is retention: in Swisscom’s data, annual churn was 5.4% for fixed-mobile customers, against 7.5% for mobile-only and 8.8% for fixed-only.
| For the subscriber | For the operator |
|---|---|
| A bundle priced 30–50% below the same services bought separately | Higher ARPU: households buy a bundle more readily than two separate services |
| One bill, one payment date, one support line | Lower churn: leaving means cancelling two contracts, not one |
| Up to 5 SIM cards with shared minutes and data for the family | No radio network to build: the host MNO provides coverage |
| Wi-Fi Calling over home broadband where cellular signal is weak | A product line on par with national incumbents |
Discounts alone carry a risk. Analysys Mason warns that deep FMC discounts can erode margins, and points to non-monetary perks, such as speed boosts, as the better lever. This is where a DPI-based core helps: an operator can bundle prioritised gaming or video, zero-rated messengers or a home speed boost instead of cutting the price.
Start light, grow to full MVNO
The safest path is to launch as a light MVNO, prove the business case, then bring the core in-house once scale justifies it.
| Light MVNO | Full MVNO | |
|---|---|---|
| What the ISP owns | Brand, product, bundles, customer care | Packet core, policy, charging, subscriber database |
| What the host MNO provides | Radio, core, SIMs, often billing | Radio access only |
| Upfront cost | Low, mostly marketing | Higher: core network and IT integration |
| Control over tariffs and QoS | Limited to what the host offers | Full: own policies, quotas, QoS per service |
| Best for | Testing demand, measuring churn and ARPU impact | Scale, B2B services, differentiated products |
A full MVNO needs several core functions: a PGW with PCEF for traffic and policy enforcement, a PCRF for policy decisions, an OCS for real-time charging, an HSS for the subscriber database and an MME for signalling and authentication. VAS Experts covers the packet core and policy layer with Stingray Service Gateway and delivers the remaining components together with its partner MIATEL.
One core for fixed and mobile: the Stingray Service Gateway architecture
Stingray Service Gateway runs fixed and mobile subscribers through the same user plane on standard x86 servers. An ISP that already uses Stingray for DPI, BRAS and CG-NAT extends its existing core instead of building a mobile one from scratch.
Figure 1 — Diagram of a convergent core
How the parts fit together:
- Access. Broadband subscribers arrive through the ISP’s access network; mobile subscribers arrive through the host MNO’s radio network.
- User plane. DPI, BNG and CG-NAT process traffic from both access types, then hand it to the border router.
- Control plane. PCEF applies mobile policies and talks to mobile billing over Diameter. Broadband sessions are authorised and charged over RADIUS.
- Management. The QoE cluster and GUI give one view of quality, usage and reports across fixed and mobile.
Building the core on a DPI engine brings practical benefits:
- Fewer boxes. One platform replaces a set of separate network appliances, which simplifies operations and scaling.
- Service-aware policies. Prioritisation of video, gaming and web traffic; zero-rating of messengers or local resources; whitelists by hostname or URL; HTTP redirect; a Mini-Firewall service.
- Custom protocols. New traffic classes can be defined by IP, CIDR, port, AS number or TLS SNI.
- Network fit. BGP, OSPF, VRF and ECMP; dual-stack IPv4/IPv6; in-line or on-stick deployment with LAG to save core ports.
- Scale. Models range from SSG-40 (20 Gbps, about 20,000 subscribers) to SSG-800 (400 Gbps, about 300,000 subscribers), with an average latency of about 30 µs.
The mobile stack has grown step by step: mobile network support in 2020, ePDG for Wi-Fi Calling in 2023, PCEF and Diameter in 2024, PGW in 2025, and PCRF and TWAG in 2026.
Two launch scenarios
Scenario 1: consumer MVNO. The ISP sells family bundles of home broadband plus mobile lines. It can start as a light MVNO on rented resources, or go straight to a full MVNO with Stingray and partner components for billing, OCS, HSS and MME.
Scenario 2: private APN for business. The target is companies with 100 or more employees that already pay for corporate mobile. The operator sells one package: office internet and a cloud PBX, plus mobile lines for staff. The business customer gets:
- VoLTE, Wi-Fi Calling and Wi-Fi Offload
- Policies, quotas and usage statistics across every employee device
- Employee location services (LBS)
- SMS notifications to staff
- eSIM with instant activation
Conclusion
For a regional broadband provider, adding mobile through an MVNO is now the most direct way to protect its base and grow revenue per household. The hard parts are commercial terms with the host MNO and systems integration, not the radio network.
A provider that already uses Stingray has the foundation of a convergent core. It can start as a Light MVNO and move to Full MVNO without replacing its infrastructure.
