Switching its wholesale agreement from Three to Vodafone has been the driving force behind the surge, company claims
Gamma Telecom has seen its MVNO partner numbers double to 100 in the 12 months since switching its wholesale agreement from Three to Vodafone.
Gamma became a Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA) partner with Three in 2006 – selling airtime and data packages to businesses wishing to launch an MVNO service.
According to Gamma head of mobile Rob Davis (pictured), whilst launching with Three was a “success”, the level of business achieved fell below expectations and switched to Vodafone in 2011, relaunching in January 2012.
Davis claims change has prompted a surge in interest, with quarterly connections increasing 30 per cent in 2012.
Davis said he expects similar growth during 2013 as the firm looks to “push on” with mobile.
He added Gamma partners are able to build bespoke tariffs to meet the “exact” needs of each customer as well as taking full ownership of the account.
Davis said partners are not set specific targets around areas such as churn and ARPU to achieve commissions.
“In the wholesale game the brand isn’t visible, but people are aware of the network it runs on,” he said. “Working with Three was reasonably successful in the sense it got us into the market, and getting some of our channel partners selling a service and made them aware of what they could do with an MVNO.
“But Vodafone’s network comes with a badge of honour, and their team works incredibly closely with us, and work hard to help us succeed.
“We reach around 15 per cent of the UK SME market through our fixed-line side via channel partners, but mobile is still very small – so there is a huge opportunity for us to grow in that SME space.”
