The MVNO US Mobile is targeting travelers with a new $10-a-month global Wi-Fi plan.
The offering enables customers to access more than 60 million hotspots in 120 countries as well as 35 million hotspots in the United States. It includes Wi-Fi offerings from American Airlines, Delta, Lufthansa, United and other airlines; hotel chains include Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Sheraton.
Roughly 20 hotspot network operators are also included. The Wi-Fi plans are accessible on any phone or laptop, US Mobile said.
Customers can access the service by downloading an iOS or Android app and activating it.
“Customers will also enjoy in-flight connectivity on all the major airlines at a more affordable price than what the airlines and other comparative services are offering,” US Mobile CEO Ahmed Khattak said in the company’s announcement. “Instead of paying for international roaming, which can be quite costly, you have a whole network of hotspots ready to be used anywhere in the world.”
US Mobile is a GSM-based MVNO that launched service in early 2015 and had grown to 20,000 customers by late last year. The company primarily targets college students and seniors with customizable service plans who can use a personal dashboard to mix and match from various services and levels, enabling US Mobile to offer 392 different monthly plans.
For example, a customer may opt for 500 voice minutes ($6 a month), 1,000 texts ($5 a month) and 5 GB of data ($28 a month) to create a $39-a-month plan plus a $2 monthly service fee.
US Mobile offers 15 phones across the spectrum of price points, but it says most customers bring their own device and activate service with a $4 SIM card. The service provider also claims customer service is a key differentiator from the countless other MVNOs in the U.S. market: Customer service agents are available around the clock, Khattak told FierceWireless late last year, and typical response times for chat and hover are roughly 10 seconds while response times for voice are typically 18-25 seconds.