A national radio network is out of reach for a small operator. A pure MVNO gives away the margin and the control. The hybrid model sits in between: your own radio in the large cities, a light edge core with satellite backhaul in the villages, and roaming on a host MNO for the rest of the country, all on one Ouroboros core.
We've selected Ouroboros because it was the best company capable of fulfilling our need for a scalable and virtualised full MVNO platform. Moreover, the Ouroboros team is pragmatic, flexible and responsive.
Pascal Prot
CEO-CTO · Legos
Small and access operators face the same dilemma everywhere. Building a radio network over a whole country takes years and capital they do not have. Launching as an MVNO is fast, but the host operator keeps the radio, the margin and most of the service decisions.
The cities are where the subscribers and the revenue are, and where a few dozen base stations make a real network. The villages are where nobody else invests, and where fibre will not arrive for years. The rest of the country only needs coverage, not ownership. The operator needs one core that does both.
The hybrid operator runs one Ouroboros core and three ways to reach its subscribers. In large cities it deploys its own eNodeBs on licensed spectrum, backhauled by fibre to the central core. In middle towns a local SPGW-C and SPGW-U run at the edge, with a LEO satellite link to the central core, so the town keeps working with a thin satellite link.
In villages a single SPGW-U runs at the edge, controlled over PFCP, and internet traffic breaks out locally on the satellite terminal. Everywhere else, subscribers roam on a host MNO. The DRA, the STP and the SBC carry the interconnect. The subscriber keeps one SIM, one number and one bill.
SPGW-U nodes run in towns and villages on small servers, controlled over PFCP by a central or local SPGW-C.
The operator already serves its subscribers as a full MVNO. It adds its own radio in the main cities and keeps the host MNO for national coverage.
Villages get 4G coverage from one or a few base stations and a satellite terminal. Internet traffic breaks out locally.
Each new town moves from roaming to own coverage by adding base stations and an edge user plane. The core and the subscriber base do not change.
Companies reach their own servers through a private APN, on the operator’s radio, on the satellite edge or in roaming.
The hybrid model needs a core that is both an operator core and an MVNO core. The Ouroboros vEPC drives the own radio network and its edge user planes, while the DRA and the STP give it the roaming interfaces of a national operator.
Everything runs on one platform and one subscriber base: HLR/HSS, OCS, PCRF, SMSC and IMS are shared by the cities, the villages and the roaming subscribers.
The core is sized for small and access operators: from a few thousand subscribers, on COTS servers or virtual machines, with edge nodes small enough for a village.
Tell us your licence, your spectrum, your target cities and your roaming partner. We will propose the radio footprint, the edge nodes and the core to match.