A mobile network operator or MNO (also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier) is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell and deliver services to an end user including radio spectrum allocation, wireless network infrastructure, back haul infrastructure, billing, customer care and provisioning computer systems and marketing, customer care, provisioning and repair organizations.
In addition to obtaining revenue by offering retail services under its own brand, an MNO may also sell access to network services at wholesale rates to mobile virtual network operators or MVNO's.
A key defining characteristic of a mobile network operator is that an MNO must own or control access to a radio spectrum license from a regulatory or government entity. A second key defining characteristic of an MNO is that an MNO must own or control the elements of the network infrastructure that are necessary to provide services to subscribers over the licensed spectrum.
A mobile network operator typically also has the necessary provisioning, billing and customer care computer systems and the marketing, customer care and engineering organizations needed to sell, deliver and bill for services, however, an MNO can outsource any of these systems or functions and still be considered an mobile network operator.
Famous quotes containing the words mobile and/or network:
“From three to six months, most babies have settled down enough to be fun but aren’t mobile enough to be getting into trouble. This is the time to pay some attention to your relationship again. Otherwise, you may spend the entire postpartum year thinking you married the wrong person and overlooking the obvious—that parenthood can create rough spots even in the smoothest marriage.”
—Anne Cassidy (20th century)
“How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows.”
—Gérard De Nerval (1808–1855)