On Tuesday Truphone is unveiling its first shared plans for business. Companies can now buy big batches of minutes, texts and megabytes and pool them across not just multiple devices, but also multiple nations. For instance a $500 plan includes 5000 voice minutes, 5000 text messages and 1 GB of 3G data, all of which can be used anywhere in the U.S., U.K. Netherlands, Australia and Hong Kong. Germany, Poland and Spain will join that list later this year.

Those prices will definitely seem high to most of us since we’re accustomed paying only for the for the domestic-only voice and data buckets offered by our local carriers. But if you’re splitting your time between countries in the Truphone “Zone” those rates look like a bargain. Anyone who has ever opened their mobile browser overseas can attest to international data roaming rates being practically criminal — $20 a megabyte isn’t uncommon.

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MVNO veteran PlatinumTel is launching a new carrier brand called GIV Mobile Wednesday, separating it from the pack not by offering unlimited data, selling app-specific plans or implementing bandwidth sharing features. Instead GIV is playing the role of charitable fund-raiser. You don’t just sign up for a voice and data plan. You sign up for one or more charities such as the American Red Cross or the Alzheimer’s Association. GIV claims it will donate 8 percent of your bill to those selected charities each month, or up to $50 per year per customer.

Of course, it might seem easier to cut a check for $50 to your charity choice rather than build your mobile service around the idea of giving. But GIV seems to targeting the same segment of the population that latches onto to charity vanity credit cards, which donate a small portion of every purchase to a customer’s organization of choice, rather than award points or miles. By allowing customers to divide their giving between multiple charities GIV acts a bit like a donation box; it aggregates a bunch of tiny gifts from individual consumers into one big check.

The MVNO is offering customers dozens of initial charities to choose from, ranging from animal welfare groups to environmental causes to disease research (you can see a full list here). Every six months GIV will take submissions from its customers for new charities, and then those same customers will vote to name one new organization to its roster each period.

As for the actual mobile service, GIV looks like many of the new breed of smartphone-centric prepaid MVNOs popping up. It offers two plans both of which have unlimited voice and text, both of which use T-Mobile’s network. The $40 plan includes 250 MB of monthly HSPA+ data before speeds are throttled, while the $50 plan includes 2 GB of data. There’s still new word on what phones GIV will sell starting tomorrow, but it will support any GSM phone that works on T-Mobile’s network for customers who just buy a SIM card.

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Zact is one of the new breed of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO), though ItsOn CEO Greg Raleigh refuses to use that term to describe his company. Like any MVNO, Zact doesn’t own any spectrum or wireless network infrastructure. It buys its access from a larger carrier instead – in this case Sprint. But Raleigh argues that MVNOs typically repackage traditional mobile voice and data plans, selling them at cheaper prices and without contracts. Meanwhile, Zact is offering a radically different way to buy services, making its plan options so granular that customers can tailor them specifically to their mobile habits.

Zact is actually a lot like Ting, an MVNO launched by Tucows last year that allows customers to select their voice, data and SMS usage separately, lets customers share those services across multiple phones and charges customers only for the minutes, texts and megabytes that they actually use. Zact, however, is taking that concept one step further.

The company plans to offer plans you can customize by the app. For $5 a month you could choose an unlimited Facebook or unlimited navigation and mapping plan, which would exempt either service from your monthly data usage. The virtual carrier is also supporting granular parental controls, which could let adults remotely control when their kids use their phones, but also who they call and what types of apps they can access.

The mobile industry has been talking about such app-tailored plans for years, but, except for a few limited cases, carriers have yet to implement them. The reason Zact is ahead of the curve is because ItsOn core business is in the policy management technology that powers such service models. While there is a huge segment of the wireless industry dedicated to building network-based traffic shaping and policy service technology, ItsOn is trying upend that market by virtualizing all of those capabilities in the cloud.

ItsOn is already trialing its technology with four major carriers – three in Europe and one in the U.S. – but the company wanted to jumpstart demand for such customizable service plans by launching its own service provider, Raleigh said. He added though, that ItsOn has no plans to shut down Zact even if it proves successful selling its cloud policy service to carriers.

ItsOn, however, faces a lot of competition on both sides of its business. The big telecom vendors like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Oracle and Cisco Systems have been upping their game in the policy management space, in many cases buying up smaller policy players. Alcatel-Lucent recently unveiled a new consumer-facing phone client and back-end management system called Smart Plan that supports most of the same plan tailoring features Zact and ItsOn offer.

The MVNO market is becoming an increasingly crowded one, as well. Ting not only has a head start over Zact, it’s also supporting many new and popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S 4. Meanwhile Zact is selling two older LG Android devices for now. Dozens of other MVNOs are vying for consumers’ attention, and though they may not have the granularity of Zact or Ting’s service plans, they’re all trying to distinguish themselves with other features just as likely to attract consumers’ attention such as ultra-cheap pricing or unlimited data.

Multiple smartphones image courtesy of Shutterstock user Reno Martin

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The participating trucks are run by empanadas specialist Nuchas, Andy’s Italian Ices, mobile burger flipper Frites ‘N’ Meats and coffee wagon Mudtruck. Karma is also installing the hotspots — which connect users through Wi-Fi to Clearwire’s WiMAX network — at Mad. Sq. Eats, a seasonal outdoor market in Madison Square Park.

Once interested web surfers log into a hotspot (under the Your Karma SSID) using Facebook, they will receive 100 MB of free data access, which they can use not only at the hosting food truck but also at any other participating food truck or any other Karma hotspot. If you like the hosting food truck’s Facebook page, you receive an additional 25 MB.

The fascinating thing about Karma is that unlike other wireless ISPs, it doesn’t just sell you access to your own mobile hotspot. Karma gives you access to everyone else’s hotspots, too. Any Karma customer can link to any Karma hotspot — whether it is on a food truck or in your neighbor’s pocket — allowing you to use your megabytes wherever its ad hoc network of devices are present.

Karma doesn’t want to be another mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) selling devices and bulk megabytes. Instead it hopes to build a social mesh network that divorces access from the device. If Karma can achieve scale, customers will no longer be forced to tether their tablets or PCs to a single modem they have to lug around wherever they go, said Karma CEO and co-founder Robert Gaal. By working with food trucks, Gaal said, Karma can seed its social mesh network in more places, helping it achieve that scale.

“This all started because the Mudtruck was parked around the office from TechStars,” Gaal said in an email. “During our time in the program and after, we kept in touch with them. At one point, we figured that all those people in line for the truck with their eyes glued to their phones might need some Wi-Fi. The first tests we did worked really well, so we approached many more after.”

After using up your initial 100 MB of free data, you can buy an additional gigabyte for $14, and that data never expires. Since Karma is so small today, customers will need to get their own dedicated hotspots if they expect to get a connection in most places. But Karma offers incentives to share your connection with as many people as possible: for everyone who connects to your modem you get 100 MB of free data, and any data those guests consume isn’t subtracted from your data bucket.

Eventually it may be possible to be a Karma customer without ever owning a Karma modem. As more customers buy into the service, the likelihood of finding a Karma signal will increase, especially in areas where internet users converge like airports and coffee shops. Gaal said Karma will also build on the food truck project and began seeding hotspots in other heavily trafficked areas.

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But starting Wednesday FreedomPop is selling a new hotspot modem that connects to Sprint’s nationwide CDMA EV-DO network. The modem will likely clock sub-megabit 3G speeds when on Sprint’s network, but it will connect to any Clearwire tower when available. That allows FreedomPop to give its current customers nationwide coverage as well as market the service to customers outside of Clearwire’s 80-city footprint.

As we’ve reported, FreedomPop eventually plans to tap into Sprint’s new LTE network, allowing it to wean itself off Clearwire’s WiMAX systems (it will keep its home broadband service with Clearwire though). According to CEO Stephen Stokols, FreedomPop will start selling an LTE-CDMA hotspot in about six months. He added that the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wants to wait until Sprint builds up its LTE footprint before making the leap. Right now Sprint has 88 cities and towns under its LTE umbrella, but plans to make a big expansion push this summer.

FreedomPop is only selling a hotspot, the Overdrive Pro, on the new network. It’s signature device, a sleeve modem designed to fit around the iPhone 4 and 4S is still AWOL, caught up in the Federal Communications Commission’s testing process. Stokols said he still holds out hope that the device will clear those tests soon. That’s probably of little consolation to the customers who pre-ordered the device last May, but Stokols said he’s hoping that a belated approval will clear the path for an iPhone 5 sleeve later this year.

Even without the Sleeve, FreedomPop has been growing rapidly as consumers latch onto its free 500 MB of monthly data and its bandwidth sharing and earning features, as well as its hotspots and iPod Touch sleeve, Stokols said. He wouldn’t reveal exact subscriber numbers saying only the virtual carrier has “hundreds of thousands” of customers. FreedomPop also plans to launch a voice service in the next few months via a partnership with VoIP and IP messaging provider textPlus.

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T-Mobile MVNO Solavei said on Wednesday it will fully support all of the HSPA+ radios in the new version of the iPhone 5. That means anywhere T-Mobile offers 3G service, Solavei will too. Previously all iPhones’ 3G capabilities were restricted to areas where T-Mobile had completed its ongoing network overhaul, which to date is about 50 cities. Solavei – which has adopted a multi-level marketing approach (think Amway) to distributing its service – is selling the unlocked iPhone 5 directly to customers for the steep price of $700 through its retail partner GSMNation. But unlocked versions of the device will work just fine with Solavei’s SIM cards.

Solavei, however, won’t get access to T-Mo’s latest and greatest 4G network though. The MVNO confirmed that none of its customers will be able to tap T-Mobile’s LTE network, no matter what phone they own. T-Mobile has only launched LTE in seven cities, and it appears to be keeping its new 4G service for itself for the time being. I would expect that change eventually though. Sprint, for instance, is already opening its new LTE network to its numerous MVNO partners.

T-Mobile’s 3G network, though, is nothing to scoff at. T-Mo the only U.S. carrier to offer dual-carrier HSPA+, which is now accessible by the iPhone 5 and many other devices supporting its Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band. T-Mobile also has several other MVNO partners, such as Tracfone’s Straight Talk Wireless, that can theoretically support the iPhone 5. Solavei is the only one we know of that is selling a nano-SIM card that fits into to device, but many consumers are getting around that problem by cutting larger SIM cards down to size.

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For a $3.49 a month, you can store up to 500 MB of unused data in a kind of rainy-day fund, which grow to a maximum size of 20 GB. The feature is available to all of its USB dongle and mobile hotspot customers, whether they pay for subscription tiers or indulge in FreedomPop’s free 500 MB plan (though if you enroll in the rollover plan, the service is obviously no longer free). Using FreedomPop’s social networking features, customers can also give portions of that banked bandwidth away.

FreedomPop notified its existing customers of the service on Wednesday, and in 24 hours 30 percent of its free customers had enrolled in the service, a FreedomPop spokesperson said.

Why the interest? Well, if you think about it, there’s not too much too you can do with 500 MB a month if you’re regularly using a mobile broadband service. But there are many people who only need mobile broadband on occasion. I count myself as one of them – I really only need a mobile hotspot service when traveling.

While I’m completely unwilling to pay $30 a month for a hotspot I use only every few months. I would be willing to pay a few bucks a month for a hotspot that I would allow me to consume hefty amounts of gigabytes at specific times without incurring massive overage fees. It’s a concept that FreedomPop competitor Karma is also latching onto, selling a gigabyte of data that never expires for $14.

The subscription model only works if you’re a regular user of a service. In the case of mobile broadband there is a huge potential for casual users who don’t want to be locked into pricey monthly plans. It’s good to see that companies like Karma and FreedomPop are starting to tailor their pricing to target just such users.

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GoSmart plans start at $30 a month, including unlimited talk and text. For $5 more a month, you can get unlimited Web access, but only on T-Mobile’s 2G GPRS and EDGE networks. For $45 a month, you can upgrade to the 3G HSPA network and get 5 GB of data, after which you’ll be throttled down to 2G speeds. It’s important to note T-Mo is specifically saying 3G here even though its marketing its HSPA+ network as 4G. The implication is that even GoSmart users on the $45 plan won’t get access to the full bandwidth available over its data networks.

GoSmart is offering only two devices without subsidies, a $50 Alcatel feature phone and a $100 ZTE Android 2.3 device, which is a pretty good bargain for a smartphone. GoSmart’s main go-to-market package appears to be a SIM kit that allows a customer to activate any GSM device they bring to the network. That strategy seems to replicate the SIM services that have proven so successful for Tracfone and other mobile virtual network operators.

But why is T-Mobile creating an entirely new brand for prepaid when it already sells a lot of contract-free plans under the official T-Mobile? The carrier is probably trying to create two distinct classes of prepaid of service so it can tailor its marketing for each. T-Mobile’s branded prepaid emphasizes T-Mobile HSPA+ data network, bigger and faster data plans and higher-end devices.

Meanwhile, GoSmart is clearly targeted at the more voice-centric budget user. Sprint follows the same approach, though its segmented its prepaid services into numerous brands, including Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile and Assurance Wireless.

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The virtual operator, owned by Latin American multinational América Móvil, is only a third smaller than T-Mobile, and it’s growing a lot faster. TracFone had a bang-up year, growing its subscriber base by 13.3 percent in 2012. Over the holidays it added 753,000 subscribers alone, which beat out every other operator in the U.S. save AT&T and Verizon. Consumers appear to like the cheap no-contract services TracFone is selling.

TracFone managed to grow so big only by the grace of the large carriers. As a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), TracFone buys wholesale CDMA and GSM voice minutes and 3G data from all of the Big 4 and feeds them into its multiple brands: Straight Talk, Net 10, Simple Mobile, Telcel América and SafeLink Wireless. All of them target different types of consumers – Straight Talk goes after iPhone users on a budget while Telcel targets the Mexican community in the U.S. – but what they all have in common are inexpensive plans sold without contracts.

While there are dozens of new independent MVNOs in the U.S., most of them tend to be modest outfits. One of the most successful of the new breed, Solavei, has only 100,000 subscribers. On the other hand, while Solavei has been existence only a half a year, TracFone has had plenty of time to grow. It outdates most of the modern carriers, launching in 1996 long before the term MVNO came into existence. Back then it was simply a prepaid reseller.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock user Mopic

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T-Mobile is striving to be the first in the U.S. to sell the BlackBerry Z10, which is ironic since Solavei buys T-Mobile service at wholesale pricing and re-sells it along with specific unlocked phones. That means you can pay $999 now for the Z10 and use it on T-Mobile’s network or you can wait a few short weeks and pay far less; perhaps $199 with contract, depending on what T-Mobile decides to charge for the handset.

Solavei is likely using the early Z10 offer to attract more customers to its virtual network. The company sells unlimited monthly plans for $49 on unlocked phones and has a unique business model.

In addition to the low monthly fees, Solavei members can earn compensation by recruiting more customers to the network. The system reminds me of a multi-level marketing opportunity and the company claims to have paid out more than $4.1 million to its members. That’s a good chunk of change and I’ll bet those members high on the pyramid are the only ones that can afford a $999 BlackBerry.

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