Simwood Mobile has been in the wild for some time now and remains unique in exposing unparalleled flexibility to build MVNOs with access and control of traffic at all levels. We have substantially more MVNOs in prototype / development than exist in the marketplace, and you’re doing some very exciting things with it. However, we’ve been listening to your feedback and today are pleased to announce some significant changes.
Technically, the product is unparalleled so we’re changing nothing there other than pressing ahead with the work we still have in the pipeline.
Commercially though it was far too complicated and whilst earlier adopters “got it”, they were in the minority. We previously gave customers the pricing components to build their own bundles with complete flexibility. However, these have caused more confusion and concern than they’ve created opportunity. We’ve learned that we need to present cleaner packages that customers can mark-up to reflect the value they’re adding, and bin the numerous component charges.
No Minimum Terms
We’re also completely removing the minimum terms and minimum spend, so production MVNOs under your own brand are available to all production customers (i.e. Startup / Virtual Interconnect / Managed Interconnect). Developer account customers can access Developer Packs and associated pricing to develop new services with negligible cost and risk. In short, whereas mobile was a separate product arguably doing things differently to the Simwood way, we’ve brought it into the main business now and anyone paying for voice services can access it with no additional minimum spends or contract terms.
In the tone of a late-night infomercial: that alone is a saving of £100,000 per brand compared to conventional MVNOs, before considering the unique technical control and features. We mean actual MVNOs here of course with your (or your customers’) brand on the handset – not simply reselling another brand, or even high street SIMs, and calling the reseller’s reseller an MVNO as some seem to do.
New Packages
In due course, as we gather more data, we will introduce formal bundles available on a per-SIM basis but today we’re introducing packages. What’s the difference? A bundle has a strict number of minutes, text and data included with unit charging for overage. A package has a similar fixed price and included minutes, texts and data, but we do not intend ordinarily charging for overage. The overage charges exist to prevent abuse but a customer using slightly more minutes or SMS on one SIM and slightly fewer on another may not be billed overage if on average they’re within the package.
Data is the only exception here; once the included data is gone, data service will be suspended until more data is purchased for that SIM through the API or portal. Packages are available month-to-month and we will be tweaking the price and the included elements as your usage becomes clear.
Our headline package for voice/data combined is:
- 1000 minutes (to/from the mobile device only)
- 1000 SMS (to/from the mobile device only)
- 1000MB data
for £25 per month per SIM.
Developer customers can access an alternative Developer Pack package in lieu of the existing Developer Pack component pricing (please ask us to have existing Developer Packs changed over):
- 100 minutes (to/from the mobile device only)
- 100 SMS (to/from the mobile device only)
- 100MB data
for £5 per month per SIM.
Mobile Numbering
Each of the above includes the equivalent of one ported-in mobile number per SIM, but these are not tied to a SIM, i.e. if you have 1000 SIM packages you will be allowed 1000 ported MSISDNs before paying extra. Additional ported numbers and any Simwood mobile MSISDNs will be charged. This is counter-intuitive but given the unpredictable and illogical regulatory environment we operate in, there is less risk for you and us in favouring ported numbers over our own despite it being commercially less favourable for us.
Of course, by virtue of us removing minimum commitments for mobile, customers are able to ‘Port to SIP’ and provide full unified communications without necessarily using our SIMs. This is not available on our own Simwood MSISDNs (i.e. the 075200 range) as we do not trust that the same regulatory standards would be applied to us as to incumbent’s unified services.
Innovative Mobile Data
When it comes to data, our platform is uniquely positioned for you to offer innovative M2M, Internet of Things (IOT) and Mobile Broadband solutions and some of you already are. We can offer vanilla ‘NATed’ internet access but without all the content filters of an incumbent MNO, or for a charge per SIM, a fixed IPv4 address. You can also configure L2TP hand-off on a per-SIM basis and get data directly onto your network where you can issue your own addressing – perfect for corporate walled-garden type solutions or M2M/IoT applications.
Whilst all our SIMs are voice, text and data capable (i.e. we’re not just reselling an MNOs data SIM here) we’re also introducing packages for data-heavy applications. We say “data-heavy” because you can use the other features if you choose to and overage may apply if you do, but the package includes a fixed amount of data starting from a very low M2M/IoT suitable level right up to heavy mobile-broadband. If comparing these to high-street SIMs please keep in mind; (a) you can get the traffic, (b) there are no nasty content filters if you do pass it through us instead, and (c) this is for any data usage, so “Personal Hotspot” / Tethering is included. On many high street packages the included data is solely for use from the device itself and attempts to tether or us the SIM outside of recognised phone will fail.
Data-heavy Packages
| Data allowance | Per month |
|---|---|
| 10Mb | £1.50 |
| 100Mb | £3.50 |
| 500Mb | £7.50 |
| 1Gb | £10 |
| 2Gb | £18 |
| 4Gb | £35 |
| 6Gb | £50 |
Should you wish to top-up data on any of our packages, the above are also available as “top-ups”, i.e. you could have our combined voice/data SIM, but add an extra 1GB of data as a monthly recurring package. Alternatively, you can monitor data availability through our API and add additional allowance by the megabyte at the overage rate.
Component pricing remains available for those wishing to commit to volume and those who have already done so will see no change to their agreed terms. This is about making the service more accessible to everyone and responding to feedback. Naturally, we’re happy to talk about migrating existing agreed terms to new packages on a case-by-case basis.
I hope you’ll share our excitement at the above. By all means speak to Craig to let us have your feedback or purchase your Developer Pack through the portal if you haven’t already. The above new packages will be making their way into the portal just as soon as we can!
