Aloha reddit, I'm the CEO of Mobi, the regional wireless provider for Hawaiʻi — ask me anything about the things we're doing to try to cope with COVID-19 as a small company and team, what the wireless industry is up to, or for help with your iPhon...

Hey Justen!

What do you see as the smaller MVNOs' biggest challenges in a Sprint-less world? Sprint had been one of the most MVNO-friendy carriers, and absent their "yeah, let's do it" approach, are we likely to see fewer new MVNOs?

Aloha Mitch! Not quite a softball, but I'll take it. ;)

I think so, at least for a little while. Sprint generally would allow just about anyone with a halfway decent MVNO idea to give it a shot. The other three are nowhere near as willing to do that, for whatever reason you might want to ascribe.

Some of the newer MVNOs are definitely not small, though, so that changes the dynamic a little bit. Comcast, Charter, Cox, etc., and at least for right now Dish (temporarily acting as an MVNO as they build out their own network), have way more to invest/commit than your average MVNO startup.

Every indication is that Dish will be at least as wholesale-friendly as was Sprint, maybe even more so. So even if there is a little bit of a nuclear winter for MVNOs for the next couple of years, I think it won't last forever. (And that was also true after each of the droughts post the big ESPN Mobile/Amp'd/Solavei failures.)

Oh, we're doing softballs?

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or 1 horse-sized duck?

I think duck-sized horses. A big duck would be frightening. But I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'd probably try to domesticate the mini-mini-horses.

Every indication is that Dish will be at least as wholesale-friendly as was Sprint, maybe even more so.

Once they have their own network...

So even if there is a little bit of a nuclear winter for MVNOs for the next couple of years, I think it won't last forever. (And that was also true after each of the droughts post the big ESPN Mobile/Amp'd/Solavei failures.)

Not that anyone asked me, but I'd suggest that the aggregators (ahem, at least one of them) will be there with wide open arms to enable new usecases and businesses. I actually think a economic shift will help out prepaid; more bandwidth = more pricing flexibility = new usecases.

I have heard at least one of them, ahem is pretty decent. ;)

As I imagine the quarantine is beating down the tourist driven Hawaiian economy, are things ok over there? I imagine you aren't as hard hit as the hotels and ABC stores on every corner, but still...

Aloha, and mahalo for the first question! (And forgive me for any typos I haven't caught and edited yet, it's just a little shy of 5am here and my coffee hasn't fully kicked-in yet!)

Officially, our unemployment rate here in Hawaiʻi was 13.9% as of June (down from 34% in April), although new numbers for July should come out this week. Looking around to our family and friends, that number would seem to be missing a lot of folks. Stories of entire families being laid off are heartbreaking, and the state has been inexcusably slow to figure things out to get help to the people that need it (although I know that has been true in at least some other states, as well).

We were thankfully able to keep everybody on the team working. We closed our stores and offices back in March when the first stay at home restrictions were imposed, and all of our retail team shifted to working from home to help out with customer care. And although there has been a new surge in cases here on Oʻahu over the past few weeks, everyone on the team has been safe.

We've continued to forgive or extend bill due dates for customers that need help. (The official "Keep Americans Connected" pledge was pretty poorly implemented by other carriers based on what we've heard or seen, sadly, and expired June 30. We've not disconnected anyone since March for non-payment.)

So, yes, we're lucky to have not been impacted the same way as folks in the hospitality and tourism sectors have been. But the economy is so interconnected, we see that pain in our friends and family, and in our customers and their families.

We've long been worried about the economy's dependence on tourism here, and as a company we've worked to promote entrepreneurship (particularly in other fields). I hope, once we begin to see some non-oncoming-train light at the end of this tunnel, that we can really begin to rethink that as a state. Of course, we'll always warmly welcome visitors that love Hawaiʻi, but we've got to figure out some other ways of creating opportunities for folks, too.

I can understand that. Good luck to you and the rest of the team, hopefully we will all make it through this sooner rather than later!

I hope so, too!

Hi, Justen. Thanks for doing this AMA! I have one Mobi-related question for you and one plug for myself.

First, The Plug
I know, it's not a question befitting an AMA, but it's a tough time for everyone, so here I go. Worth a shot, right?

I'm a data analyst and digital marketing specialist with over a decade in high-growth SaaS startups looking for a job in the midst of the COVID-19 upheaval. I was laid off several months ago due to company downsizing, and while I'm consulting for a number of great companies at the moment, I'm looking to get back to full time. Any chance Mobi needs a super knowledgeable and dedicated employee in one or both of these areas? If not, in need of a freelancer?

Mobi Question

You, personally, have excellent ratings on Glassdoor as the CEO (100% approval!), and the company itself has a very high rating as well. What are the key tenets by which you run your company to ensure employee satisfaction and an all-around quality environment?

Aloha Robear! We're mostly B2C focussed, but I'd love to still figure out if there's any overlap in some things we might need some help with and your skills. I'm justen dot burdette at mobi pcs dot com. (I know the spam bots are smart enough to piece that back together nowadays, but habits.)

As a data analyst, I'm sure you realize my 100% CEO rating on Glassdoor is from a relatively small sample size. But I do believe in the principle (and not just the meme) that a good manager is a good advocate, defender, and counselor more than a "boss." And so, I try hard to be a good manager. Everyone on the team is empowered to make the right decision, whatever that might be. And we try to make sure silos don't build up, which to me can make a theretofore great place to work much less enjoyable.

How often do you (or the company) deal with anti-science/"electromagnetically sensitive" people and communities? What challenges do they pose as you attempt to install equipment near them?

Thankfully we haven't seen quite the same level of conspiracy theory uptake here in Hawaiʻi that, for example, the UK has had to deal with recently. It worries me a lot for our country/species/planet, though, that critical thinking and norms have broken down to the point that they have to allow conspiracy theories to run rampant in the way that they now can. While, of course, they're nothing new, the extent to which they can spread and have profound impacts is frightening. (I haven't even really begun to process what it will look like if significant percentages of the population refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination that is otherwise proven safe and effective — but also happens to have a government tracking or mind control device implanted.)

I never thought I would, but I feel sorry for Bill.

But on 5G, we'll see as coverage is built-out here in the U.S. and in Hawaiʻi. The best we can do is explain the facts. It helps to do that face-to-face, I find, but that'll have to wait until things get back to some kind of normal.

After looking over the website, the pricing looks great for low-use data, and very good for unlimited talk and text. If you are able to, would you please go into what networks you're using stateside? The mobile app on google play seems to allow me as someone in NH to order a sim card. I'm wondering what network I would be on as well as whether I would be able to port a number from my local area into the service. I'm also wondering if that was intended behavior in the app to allow for that if you're a regional provider? Thanks.

Sprint was the only large domestic carrier that allowed itself to be mentioned by name as a network or roaming partner. We do work with others, and if you reach out to us in a one-on-one channel we're allowed to let you know if we'd have coverage in your area (from which you might be able to deduce who we would be roaming on?). It's a silly dance, but the Big 3 don't want folks to capitalize on their brands. It isn't an anomaly that you were able to sign-up, as our agreements with carriers on the mainland don't proscribe "permanent" roaming. Let me know if you run into any issues, though, and I'm happy to help!

Speaking of roaming, how does it work for international? Like, say, Canada? I remember you mentioning Mobi had an office in Vancouver before so I'm guessing there's some sort of relationship with at least one of the Canadian big 3?

It’s a lot easier to use a second IMSI from one of the big international carriers for international roaming. We’ve been working on that so that we can offer some decent (not quite Fi) international roaming rates in the near future.

Hi,

What does your technology stack look like? What's the equipment challenges you face? Any concerns with equipment out in the elements and salty water/air ?

On the software side, we decided to go with an open source BSS/OSS platform a little while back to avoid getting stuck with a big monolithic provider that we couldn't escape. (It's one of the reasons wireless and telecom in general tends to struggle with billing, customer care, and the like in our opinion — pretty much everyone uses the same awful software.)

One of the biggest challenges for wireless providers tends to be more getting permission to put in or upgrade a tower, as opposed to the durability of equipment, to be honest. Hawaiʻi isn't unique in that regard — NIMBYism is everywhere, and has been supercharged by the crazy 5G conspiracy theories out there. Everyone wants faster, more reliable wireless service, but nobody wants a wireless tower anywhere near them. It's definitely a tough catch-22.

It's one of the areas where I think Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice, etc. will probably leapfrog the big carriers to a certain extent, I think. While AT&T and Verizon understand poles in their own legacy ILEC footprints, the cable companies still live that every day and have decent bandwidth strung along them (and, helpfully, electricity right there, too). Pole-mounted small cells can bring network density out way closer to where folks live and work, and that'll be a big deal in a 5G world. It's maybe one of the biggest reasons why I figure Dish (see the other comment on consolidation) and the cable companies might eventually end up working together — if you're going to build a nationwide network, it might not hurt to split the cost with somebody else.

On the software side, we decided to go with an open source BSS/OSS platform a little while back to avoid getting stuck with a big monolithic provider that we couldn't escape. (It's one of the reasons wireless and telecom in general tends to struggle with billing, customer care, and the like in our opinion — pretty much everyone uses the same awful software.)

Which one did you end up with?

BillRun!

Hey Justen, fancy seeing you here!

First of all just want to say thanks for everything through the years and I'm really glad to see Mobi getting some momentum behind them, very excited for you and the team

My question(s) - I'm curious on your take as to what Dish looks like in the mobile space in the next 5 years or so. Do you think the US ends up with a 'big four' again, and if so what kind of timeframe you'd expect to see that by?

Also curious for your take on their recent splash in the market at Ting and if Tucows new mobile B2B direction is something you think would appeal to companies like yourselves

I think I recognize your username — fancy seeing you here, too! Thanks for stopping by!

I think it'll be a very different "Big 4" with Dish to be honest. But I don't think that'll be a bad thing.

Sprint was distracted for years. First by iDEN (and I say that as a huge fan and customer of Nextel before, during, and after that acquisition), then by WiMAX, then by the early disruption of the rip-and-replace phase of Network Vision, and lastly with the marketing desperation of the final few years before the merger. I say all of that as someone who loved Sprint and wanted to see it succeed.

Unless something fundamentally changes, I would expect there to still be a pretty decent gap between Dish and the Big 3 in five years in terms of subscriber numbers. Even getting close to closing that gap would require a lot of MNO/MVNO musical chairs (some of which I hint at here in a different thread). But even a decent fraction of one of the Big 3 would be a huge business, particularly since I'd expect Dish to manage that business pretty closely to ensure it is profitable.

And I do think they'll open up a whole new ecosystem of wireless wholesale with a completely different economic model. Most cars now have a SIM card, but I think you'll see even more devices, and businesses dive deeper into the wireless network for their own devices/employees to ensure control/privacy.

Dish put a nearly 4 ton satellite into orbit in 1995, having never done anything quite like that before. I don't doubt they'll figure out ways to build a wireless network in the U.S. that is way cheaper to build and operate than anything we've ever seen. As a wireless geek that is pretty exciting to me. As someone that needs to roam on wireless networks, that opens up a whole new world of possibilities if they're wholesale friendly, and every indication in the CCA and other industry forums is that they will be.

On Tucows, I think they've built just about the best BSS anybody has ever seen. If they can build out the OSS capabilities, make it multi-tenant, and scale it up, I think it'll be a wildly disruptive thing. When other carriers see Dish tap dancing around them because they can change a rate plan in a few minutes or absorb another customer base in a few days, there will be a lot of system envy. Switching is, unfortunately, hard though.

Oh hey, it's been a while. I remember when you were at Ting and helped me with a few things (like trying, if not succeeding, to get my Japanese iPhone 7 onto Sprint).

That said, my question for you is also tangentially related to Ting, though the initial answer I got from Ting people seems to point to it happening across all providers, so I imagine you'd have some understanding of it too- it was explained to me that over the course of a phone being connected to a tower, there will always be a small amount of data communication between the two even if mobile data is turned off, and to think of it as being like a "heartbeat" (a "heartbeat" that's costing me international data fees because I'm currently in Canada, which is how I first noticed it). What data, exactly, is being transmitted when this happens?

Really nice to see you again! I’m sorry we never managed to get that working for you — honest to God it was one of the reasons I pushed for us to have complete control of our own SIMs and activation process at Mobi!

Sounds like they’re referring to a handshake. If I’m remembering correctly, we can (and I think?) did differentiate handshake traffic on the T-Mo side and excluded it from billing. But I believe we couldn’t differentiate the traffic on the Sprint side. Or potentially vice versa, it’s been a while. But particularly now with IMS, voice and SMS both travel through a data session (hence VoLTE). The handshake to setup that session uses a tiny bit of data every time.

Good to know, thanks for the explanation!

That aside, Mobi looks pretty interesting and it seems like I'd save a bundle by porting my mainline Sprint line to it (I've got multiple numbers going on here, my Ting number for some things and my Sprint number for others, and a local Canadian number for Canadian things). Right now, with that line, I'm paying $50/month for unlimited data that I'm not even using. I'm assuming you can't mail a SIM to Canada, though. Or can you? That was the roadblock that kept me from porting that number to Ting to be together with my other number- I can't have a SIM mailed out to me here, and sending it to my PO box place at home and having them forward it would take forever (I'm still waiting for a packet of forwarded mail that was sent to me Priority Mail- 13 days ago).

I'm putting aside the possible lack of Canada roaming as an issue, because I've got a data-only plan here in a WiFi device that I've got my phone connected to pretty much all the time so as long as it does WiFi calling, I'm good.

If you have Apple Pay setup, you might be able to sneak through an order with a Canadian address using the app. Otherwise, place an order with your U.S. address and then ping me with your order number and Canadian address and we can get it changed. justen dot burdette at mobipcs dot com if you’d prefer email.

We’re working on Canadian/international roaming, but I don’t want to commit to that until we have a few more things finalized. But WFC should work for you.

You used to put up your own towers in certain locations on Oahu but I noticed some of those towers are now gone.

Does mobi piggy back off another network?

That was true throughout Hawaiʻi, not just on Oʻahu. A few years ago, we reached a deal to spinoff most of our network to Verizon.

On an unrelated note, you can probably guess at least one of the networks we sometimes piggyback off of, I bet. (See below for the silly rules on mentioning roaming or network sharing partners.)

What are the real usecases for 5G in your mind?

Mostly still to be invented, I think. Right now it is just faster, more limited LTE. But the significantly higher speeds and theoretical lower latency, once backhaul catches up, will open up some doors.

I'm late to the party, but if you're still playing:

What can you tell us about the state of RCS? Do you think Apple will ever get on board?

Better late than never, thanks for the question — made me ponder!

If it eventually replaces SMS, probably for the Green Bubbles™. I would be surprised if they ever shifted that way for iMessage. Until RCS has true, interoperable, end-to-end encryption, though, I couldn’t see Apple doing it. Once that’s finally there and supported across the board, they might actually force it to finally kill SMS.

When Steve announced FaceTime and iMessage, he promised both would be interoperable and that Apple would open up the standards for each. Obviously that never happened, but I’ll naïvely hold out hope that it might one day.

I’m not sure I know of many other regional wireless providers. What are some of the bigger differences between a regional and national wireless provider, both for your company and for the customer experience?

There used to be a lot of us. The biggest one left standing is U.S. Cellular, then GCI, C Spire (formerly and still legally Cellular South), and Shentel (which is currently in a negotiating period to potentially be acquired by T-Mobile) in no particular order. Over the years, most have been acquired by the now-Big 3 to fill out their own coverage maps. (In some cases, like Cincinnati Bell, they only bought the network and so the customers eventually had to find a new provider. In others, like West Virginia Wireless, the customers eventually became subscribers of the new parent company.)

Most of the widgets are more or less the same, so the big difference I suppose is how the company is run. If you call for care, do you gets someone that knows who/where you are, are decisions made locally, etc. It's hard to imagine FTTH would have been built out to the extent it has in Mississippi, for example, if not for C Spire being based there. Alaska would not naturally be a place for early 5G adoption, if not for GCI.

For us as a company, the biggest difference is having to rely on roaming. That's one of the reasons some of the regional wireless providers were pretty opposed to the Sprint/T-Mo merger — the fear that roaming was about to become way more expensive for them, which would be a big disadvantage competitively. (And a bit of an undoing of the real-if-unwritten contract between the big carriers and the regional ones — that the latter will fill in coverage gaps for the former in exchange for decent outbound roaming terms and sustainable inbound roaming revenue.)

Have you ever meet Robert Kiyosaki? What inspired you to work at Mobi? What inspired you to go into business? And what inspired you to do this AmA?

I've not. It looks like he was born in Hilo but has lived in Arizona for a long time, based on his Wikipedia?

Why Mobi? I had applied for a product/project job at Mobi years ago, but it didn't work out. A few years later, the opportunity to help Mobi pivot from being a subsidiary to a standalone company came up, and I got a second chance to join the team. I'm not sure that I'd do good working within the bureaucracy at a big carrier (more fun to work around them), so Mobi is a way more fun place to try to do interesting stuff.

Why business? My first full-time job was for a dial-up ISP/CLEC. (It started out part-time — a water main broke, and their office and part of their data center was somewhat questionably on a basement level. My dial-up service had stopped working, and I stopped in to see what was wrong. My first job there was cleaning mud off of equipment.). I ended up getting hooked on telecom, even in the few years that I worked in a non-telecom IT/project role.

Why an IAmA? I love answering obscure wireless/telecom questions on reddit, so this seemed like a good chance to try to really test my limits. Lol.

Awesome! Where do you see Mobi in the next decade? Where do you see yourself in the next 5? What obscure niche do you see for telecom that it has not yet fulfilled?

Wireless is going to be super interesting, I think. Where T-Mo goes, particularly once they completely absorb the Sprint spectrum and subscriber base, will be fascinating. And where Dish goes once they begin spinning-up their own network will be at least as fascinating, if not more so.

I'd love to see us get to the point where we can substantially impact connectivity and accessibility issues. We're still pretty small, but we're beginning to figure out ways to use the scale we do have to do some interesting things (like shift customer onboarding completely to apps for customers that prefer to go that route, break eSIM out of the silly strictures that have been placed on it by most other carriers here in the U.S., do customer care better, do affordable without gimmicks, etc.). Still, there's a lot more good I think we can do technologically that we haven't fully tackled yet, so I'm excited to work on some of that.

IoT is still badly hobbled by the legacy business models that the U.S. wireless industry tries to impose. You see it show up in funny ways — Automatic, before SiriusXM killed it, went with Telefónica, even though it was never available outside the U.S. and roamed on AT&T and T-Mobile. But the big guys impose crazy contractual obligations, make certification nearly impossible for small startups, barely understand eSIM themselves, etc. I'd love to see where that guys if someone like Mobi (maybe?), or Dish, or Twilio, etc. really succeed in making IoT enablement as easy as it could be.

Of course, speed and latency and broader coverage will all continue to improve. I think Starlink, Kuiper, and OneWeb will change a lot of things for non-urban areas. Starry and Tarana and others innovating in the more urban/suburban-oriented fixed wireless space, too, will disrupt the typical one or two pipe bandwidth model. Lots of interesting things become possible when there's more competition, new technology options, etc.

Good Morning! What’s the status of eSim availability on Mobi? Patience is not my strongest virtue! ;)

I can definitely relate! We are really excited about the potential for eSIM, but we don't want to screw it up. Maybe one of the biggest things that surprised me, shifting from the MVNO side to the facilities-based side, is the extent to which SIM profile work is more of an art than a science. We're still dependent on the SIM manufacturers for the SIM profile development and QA work, and so we mostly have to work on their schedule rather than ours.

We are really close. And I can say with certainty we won't be doing crazy things like requiring you to go into a store or talk with a human to get a Mobi eSIM — it will be an entirely self-serve/digital process. I wish I could give a precise date, but I've found that to be mostly a silly thing to do when talking about timelines dependent on any of the big telecom/wireless vendors. Every indication is that we are days/weeks, not months/quarters away, at least based on the project work order invoices we're paying... :|

Even if it isn't your strongest virtue, thank you for your patience. We are pushing every way we can to get it ready ASAP.

is the extent to which SIM profile work is more of an art than a science. We're still dependent on the SIM manufacturers for the SIM profile development and QA work, and so we mostly have to work on their schedule rather than ours.

Oh my! I've also heard that eSIMs actually cost more than physical sims which blows my mind... Can you comment?

SIM pricing, both physical and virtual, is one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. That’s the extent to which I can comment. Lol.

is one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen.

dude, I know it's quarantine, but that strikes me as an opportunity to go out more ;)

Haha. It’s been a long time. Too long. >_<

I forgot to mention earlier, u/rejusten: if you need someone on the “ninth island” to test esim, I’ll be happy to take one for the team! ;)

I didn’t realize you were that close. ;) I miss Fatburger. But stay tuned!

What do you think the future looks like with esim?

If the big carriers got out of the way, a lot simpler. Some folks will always prefer to go into a store, but eSIM makes entirely-digital customer onboarding much easy. None of the Big 3 support that today unfortunately.

Physical SIM distribution, while cumbersome, is an advantage for the big carriers. eSIM could help level the playing field a bit for regional carriers and MVNOs, which I think is one thing that scares the big guys.

What is your favorite variety of spam?

Tough question! >_<

What's been different about your life being at a regional MNO versus an MVNO?

Stores were the biggest immediate thing I had to wrap my brain around, at least from my past experiences.

Dealing with the more granular network elements, rather than it just being an API, was a mindset change, but one I was excited about. Still, roaming configuration and testing has proven to be more of a “try this,” “did that work?,” “no, then try this maybe” process than an exact science.

Hello! A little late to the party, but it still seems like a good one!

Do you need to be on one of the islands to take advantage of the service, or can the Californian that I am consider the service?

Our customer care hours might be a bit quirky for you, but coverage should be good. Please feel free to ping me directly if you run into any issues.

No worries on the times, I've already got a quirky schedule haha. Follow up question: Am I able to port in a number after the fact (say a few weeks after activating to test the service) or does it need to occur during activation?

We can help you activate with a temporary number and then help you port-in over top of that number down the road!

Awesome! Time to try out some new service then!

Thanks for giving us a shot. We’re always looking for ideas and feedback, so please don’t be shy. :)

Do you see broadband as part of the future for Mobi? I'm not sure of the state of broadband in Hawaii, but I imagine there are some challenges given the geography...

It’s definitely a real possibility. We previously offered a WiMAX-based fixed wireless service called Hele, but it can be tough to do without spectrum. Unlicensed/general authorized access CBRS might be a path back there.

In places where HawaiianTel has built out fiber, or otherwise where Oceanic Time Warner (now Charter/Spectrum) is available, things are usually decent. But folks are usually surprised to learn just how rural Hawaiʻi is, outside of urban Oʻahu. The broadband challenges are not dissimilar here versus where I grew up — just an ocean and volcanic mountains are the isolating geographic factor, instead of the Appalachian Mountains.

[deleted]

We’re often hiring in Honolulu, Hilo, and Vancouver!

Sorry I’m late, but I have a couple questions. Does Mobi use 2FA? Once you have eSim setup, would it be possible to have two lines on an iPhone that both use eSim? Or would two lines on one phone require a physical sim and eSim combo?

We’re working on 2FA now. I’m more than mildly embarrassed that we don’t have it already there, but there were a lot of reasons we had to get our new apps and BSS/OSS up and running without some of the things we wanted to launch with for the sake of just getting it launched. I can understand if you’d want to wait, though. I can ping you when 2FA is live if you’d like.

Unfortunately, iPhone only allows one active eSIM. The other SIM has to be a physical SIM. You could do Mobi on both, although the only advantage I could think of would be having two distinct numbers? (If I’m guessing your use case right.)

It’s a little further in the roadmap, but we do plan to allow multiple inbound numbers on a single SIM. That wouldn’t work with iMessage or outbound calls/texts natively, though.

Of the many, who's your favorite celebrity mobile spokesperson and why is it Carly Foulkes?

I don’t think Candice Bergen overlapped with PCS, but the Dime Lady commercials were great. Jamie Lee Curtis. Catherine Zeta-Jones. Carly was great, but underutilized and relatively short-lived.