No cost wireless MVNO FreedomPop announced it is licensing its proprietary, core monetization platform – which converts free users into paid customers and accelerates new customer acquisition – to Wind-Hutchison Italy, Italy’s largest mobile carrier.
The company said the deal marks the first time an MVNO has licensed technology to a major global carrier, and noted it will provide a new revenue stream for FreedomPop on top of its existing consumer business. FreedomPop indicated it has formalized licensing deals with some of the world’s largest carriers, and will announce a major U.S. mobile operator later this year, along with additional deals in Europe and Asia.
Wind-Hutchison Italy is first to go live licensing FreedomPop’s platform and will look to push more innovative business models, add more customers via digital channels, and up-sell value-added services to increase ARPU for existing customers.
FreedomPop said its customer acquisition costs to date are less than 1/50th of the broader market and its gross margins are nearly 50 percent, despite employing the industry’s only “freemium” model. Almost 50 percent of FreedomPop users purchase at least one value added service enabling it to give away more than 500 million MB of free data, the company said.
AT&T on Tuesday said it has added Starz to its DirecTV Now video streaming platform. The channel comes at a cost of $8 per month and provides customers with access to a library of more than 2,500 episodes and movies.
Starz lineup includes shows like “Outlander,” “Power,” and upcoming show “American Gods,” as well as movies including “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Inside Out,” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
In addition to Starz and Starz Encore video on demand content, three live premium channels – Starz, Starz Encore, and Starz Kids & Family – are also launching on DirecTV Now, AT&T said.
A new report from BroadSoft indicates telecom operators around the globe expect more than half of businesses will have adopted cloud unified communications (UC) by 2020.
According to the survey, telecom respondents expect the Cloud UC/Hosted PBX share of new lines shipped to reach 51 percent by 2020 and anticipate 45 percent of large enterprises will adopt UCaaS/Hosted PBX by 2020.
Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe native mobile integration – as opposed to Over-the-Top (OTT) apps – is an important requirement for mobile solutions.
“We’ve come to a tipping point because the old PBX systems that powered communications are on their way out and are no longer being replaced or upgraded with like for like. The cloud is viable, broadband can accommodate it, the PBX vendors are no longer around and workers need more mobility,” Taher Behbehani, chief digital and marketing officer at BroadSoft said. “All of this points towards cloud adoption. We are finally reaching the stage where technology will help improve the way people work rather than dictate how they should do it.”
SureCall, a cellular signal booster manufacturer, announced the availability of its latest cell phone signal booster, the EZ Call.
Designed for use in a home or small office, EZ Call does not require the installation of an outside antenna. The booster kit includes the EZ Call booster, with a built-in receiving antenna that is designed to be set-up at a window, along with an indoor tabletop antenna. The EZ Call supports multiple users simultaneously and covers one to two rooms of a home or small office, with up to 2,000 square feet of total coverage. The device works across all four major U.S. wireless carriers, the company said.
SureCall’s EZ Call will run consumers $229.
