Omnipoint to mix AT&T MVNO with fiber and FWA services

Internet provider Omnipoint on Wednesday launched new mobile services powered by startup Gigs and running on AT&T's mobile network. Omnipoint said the move will position it to offer bundles packaging mobile services with home Internet offers that use its fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA) networks.

"We have offered mobile services in the past, but we are now relaunching Omnipoint Mobile," Timothy Paul, the president of Omnipoint, wrote in response to questions from Light Reading. Paul said Omnipoint decided to team up with platform provider Gigs to offer a more flexible mix of MVNO services.

"Gigs have convinced us with their end-to-end capabilities, enabling us not only to launch within a matter of days but also to gather deep insights into subscriptions, usage, conversion rates, and more through Gigs Dashboard," Paul wrote. "Additionally, with Gigs Payments, we can easily accept recurring payments for our phone plans and manage AutoPay, discounts, and more."

The company's most expensive mobile plan offers unlimited talk and text with unlimited high-speed data throttling at 40GB for $65 per month. The offering runs on AT&T's mobile network.

Fiber, FWA and mobile

"The idea is to provide bundled offerings to our customers," Paul said. "With this new partnership, Omnipoint will announce new bundled and affordable service offerings."

Omnipoint Technology was founded in 2016 as an ISP born out of a fiber network construction company. Today Omnipoint manages a fiber network across three states and 350,000 locations, with around 51 employees. The company also leases fiber in a total of 27 states and currently counts 20,000 fiber customers.

On the wireless side, Omnipoint offers FWA in the 60-80GHz millimeter wave bands using Siklu equipment across 61 transmission sites, but it also offers LTE-powered fixed wireless services in the 3.5GHz CBRS band. It counts around 6,400 customers on that offering.

Omnipoint joins AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others in looking to pair home Internet services with mobile offerings in an effort to tie customers down more tightly. That trend has gained steam amid MVNO offerings from a growing number of cable companies and fixed wireless services from a growing number of mobile network operators.

Gigs enables MVNOs

Omnipoint's new MVNO leverages Gigs' new platform. Gigs launched in 2020 and in 2022 raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Gradient, Google's early-stage fund.

According to Gigs CEO Hermann Frank, the company entered the US market by providing connectivity to children's smartwatches and phone manufacturers.

"Today, we have a broad range of customers from various sectors, including broadband, FinTech, eCommerce, the creator economy and phone & wearables," Frank wrote in an email to Light Reading. He declined to name the company's customers.

Last year, Gigs announced that Grover, a subscription provider for consumer tech, launched mobile services using its platform.

Frank said Gigs provides connectivity through both AT&T and T-Mobile in the US.

Gigs is one of several companies that provide a platform other brands can use to launch mobile services. For example, its rival Reach recently inked an agreement with the National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), which forges tech and programming deals for 700-plus US cable operators and telcos.

The Reach agreement gives NCTC members access to a cloud-based platform that enables them to create and customize how they market and sell mobile – either as a bundle with home broadband or even as a standalone service.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano