Case Study
Super Charging the MVNO

Vendor Profile: VoIP Logic
VoIP Logic is a leading provider of VoIP managed services to the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific communications service provider markets. Through its Cortex® OSS, VoIP Logic customizes deployment of best of breed, next generation call processing and billing systems into fully integrated solutions. Each of its 65 competitive carrier customers uses VoIP Logic-provided technology solutions to deliver a revenue generating service.

Customer Profile: Red Pocket Mobile
Red Pocket Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) focused on the Asian community in the United States. Red Pocket Mobile works through a large multi-city network of agents, dealers and master distributors to serve Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other distinct ethnic groups throughout the country. Working with Motorola, Red Pocket Mobile is the only US mobile operator to offer mobile handsets with Chinese menus and texting capabilities. Red Pocket Mobile makes the Asia/Pacific a local call, offering zero international long distance to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and even Canada. In addition, the wireless operator provides customer support and marketing collateral in Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Spanish and English. Launched in 2006, Red Pocket Mobile utilizes a culturally and ethnically savvy approach to marketing multi-play communications services to generate strong customer loyalty in the fiercely competitive wireless market.

Challenge:
Red Pocket Mobile, like all MVNOs, depends greatly on the wholesale programs of its underlying mobile network operators (MNO). In order to succeed in a crowded marketplace, Red Pocket Mobile needed to differentiate its products and services from other prepaid wireless offerings, in part by addressing demand from its target consumer base for affordable, reliable international mobile service that is integrated with a US national calling tariff.
Red Pocket Mobile wanted to introduce innovative international calling features, including calling card functionality that would enable their customers to use their airtime balance as an international calling card even when they were not using their Red Pocket Mobile handset. The company’s challenge was twofold: to integrate wireless, calling card and international calling functionality in a seamless and easy-to-use manner, and to automate the back-office multi-system provisioning for distributors, agents and end users to ensure that separate billing and service delivery platforms act in a unified manner.

Solution:
VoIP Logic deployed a combination of the Talking SIP™ system to provide call authentication and prepaid balance management, with Cortex® as the distributor management portal, to complement Red Pocket Mobile’s existing infrastructure. Through communication between features embedded in the mobile handsets and the authentication features of the combined solution, Red Pocket Mobile users are able to call China, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the same cost as a domestic call. Further, the ability to expand Red Pocket Mobile usage beyond the mobile device via the calling card capabilities built into the Cortex/Talking SIP platform allows users to call anywhere in the world from any phone using their wireless balance. Cortex integration and web portals, coupled with Talking SIP’s powerful prepaid authentication software and Red Pocket Mobile clear vision of a multi-services play, allow Red Pocket Mobile to offer a successful early entrant into the category of converged telephone services across fixed and mobile networks.

Results:
Red Pocket Mobile is an unqualified success. In today’s hyper-competitive MVNO marketplace, the company sells its products in more than 600 points of distribution throughout Asian communities nationwide. Red Pocket Mobile’s innovative suite of mobile and landline services generates average revenue per user (ARPU) that is 15-40% higher than other MVNOs and boasts recharge amounts and frequencies rate that are 20% higher than industry averages.
Red Pocket Mobile succeeded in selling a new offering in a crowded, highly targeted ethnic market in a way that also allowed its distributors to increase residual income and commission from each sale. With a compounded monthly growth rate of over 10% since inception, Red Pocket Mobile is a company to watch.

Future Considerations:
Red Pocket Mobile is one of the earliest companies to embrace the possibilities of fixed mobile convergence through smart middleware that integrates mobile handsets and SIP-based authentication. In the not-too-distant future, Red Pocket Mobile will address point of sale functionality that allows for recharge and instant invoicing at all retail distribution points, and plans to extend its use of Cortex to give end-users a customized, feature-rich self-care interface. Red Pocket Mobile’s continued use of Cortex will enable the company to roll out additional telephony offerings tightly integrated with its current wireless offering, including IP Centrex services.