Zer01 Mobile's a nomad, will roam with a variety of carriers

by Chris Ziegler posted Mar 24th 2009 at 5:56PM

It won't make much of a difference to the end user -- all they'll care is that they're getting unlimited voice and data for under $70 a month -- but it turns out that Zer01 Mobile's upcoming VoIP-based service won't be using AT&T alone to provide service. Instead, it'll have service agreements in place with a number of GSM carriers -- nationals and regionals alike, we'd imagine -- in an effort to keep its costs low. Because all voice calls will travel over VoIP instead of GSM or UMTS proper, it seems like things could get a little dicey if you find yourself on a crappy EDGE (or worse yet, GPRS) connection, but hey, just keep telling yourself: "$69.95."

Filed under: GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS, MVNOs

Tags: mvno, zer01, zer01 mobile, Zer01Mobile

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

bangbang023 @ Mar 24th 2009 6:12PM

What happens if you talk a lot and wind up going over an individual carrier's cap?

Neutral

boris @ Mar 24th 2009 6:57PM

make one for palm OS please.

Neutral

Seve @ Mar 24th 2009 7:20PM

@bangbang

The carrier caps no longer exist, at least as far as you'd be concerned. The MVNO is buying huge buckets of bandwidth that it's responsible, so perhaps zer01 will have some sort of limit imposed but chances are you'll be fine.

Also I think this idea is going to absolutely kill mobile carriers, everyone is going to be like Clear soon. Just handing out incredibly fast data, and serving up voice over a VoIP client that runs on some sort of internet capable device. Just gotta wait for those networks to speed up.

Neutral

Cody @ Mar 25th 2009 9:50PM

I say down with MVNOs. This is not a very good idea quite yet as none of the cellular networks here in America ---- especially the GSM ones --- are nearly as mature as they need to be to handle this type of service. Imagine trying to to use this over EDGE which still makes up a majority of the AT&T network, and we all know that T-Mobile is just rolling out their 3G network. Regardless, I think this will one day be the way every carrier operates, but for now it's a bad idea, not to mention that MVNOs are fundamentally just bad ideas altogether, unless they're really backed by the carrier. The only ones that come to mind as still existing here are Boost Mobile (which is pretty well supported by Sprint), Virgin Mobile (including the Helio division) (likewise), and Tracfone (including Net 10) (which always was the MVNO powerhouse due to partnerships with WalMart and the like). Otherwise, it continues to be a dying breed and, I feel, will continue to be..... the people behind the company are fools; now is especially not the time to start an MVNO.

Neutral

Xoyuji @ Mar 25th 2009 4:55PM

Tracfone would do good without Walmart there already owned by a phone company America Movil; they could say fuck Walmart and still do good through all the other stores they sell in there's no real chance there going anywhere more likely they could pickup Sprint or one of the small carriers and rename it Tracfone.

Neutral

marbar @ Apr 1st 2009 5:01PM

what about international roaming i travel to europa & mexico. and I"ll like get zer01

Neutral

cassie @ May 4th 2009 2:09PM

Ive waited so long to have a service that is actually unlimited. Ive tried so many services that say they are unlimited and really are not. i think zer01 could be a really good thing for all of us.

Neutral

Darren @ May 27th 2009 2:58AM

Guys, Zer01 is NOT an MVNO. They have made that very clear in all their correspondance so far. the company has licensed patent pending proprietary Veritable Mobile Convergence (VMC) Technology. What does that mean to me?. Well true unlimited everything.
You also don't have to worry about exceeding any cap or download limits, or talking for to long. It is True Unlimited.
A number of people within GlobalVerge, the marketing division to be used by Zer01, this week will be getting there hands on these phones so they can start using the service.
It all sounds to good to be true, but I think that is the case only because the service we have to put up with and pay for has been so #$%^ and expensive.
Time will tell
But I'm very confident.
http://buzzirk-mobiles.blogspot.com/