Such a cool write-up, I enjoyed the screenshots of the admin interfaces ... which look exactly as bad as I'd hoped
Sad to see Mobile-X MVNO as the preferred SIM in the photos shown, but I wonder if an MVNO has local-level data to detect a situation like this when hundreds of phones are in one area and don't move. Postpaid carriers running their own network might easily connect the dots between SIM/accounts/phone towers... but the piggyback nature of MVNO network management probably makes even detecting this behavior even harder.
> I wonder if an MVNO has local-level data to detect a situation like this when hundreds of phones are in one area and don't move
MVNOs don't care because they collect the profit without having to deal with any of the network issues. The carriers in turn only care when it impacts performance for legitimate customers, as they also see a piece of the pie.
I assumed there would be anti-fraud measures blocking this kind of activity, but if this is a paying customer it isn't necessarily fraud/bad to the carrier or mvno
It'd depend on the mvno and their costs, but if the user fees pay for the underlying costs, the mvno is making money, and their user numbers go up, which makes for happy graphs.
They can also cancel or limit sims that do too much messaging or calling, which drives new user signups and makes more happy graphs. Doesn't really matter to them if all the abusers live in the same office.
Increased volume also likely reduces their unit costs with the underlying operator and messaging/calling providers, so even break even abusers help their bottom line by increasing margins for normal customers.
Off the top of my head Good2Go is better and cheaper. I don't have the names of any others, but get AI to do a deep search and it'll find a whole bunch and show you stats for them all.
I don't think there's some other seedy reason - Mobile-X is just the least expensive option I know of right now in the US that can be purchased at retail, so that is probably the main reason
Sad to see Mobile-X MVNO as the preferred SIM in the photos shown, but I wonder if an MVNO has local-level data to detect a situation like this when hundreds of phones are in one area and don't move. Postpaid carriers running their own network might easily connect the dots between SIM/accounts/phone towers... but the piggyback nature of MVNO network management probably makes even detecting this behavior even harder.