More Competition, More Choice

The domestic mobile telephone market has been one with very little competition over the last few years. A a small number of huge companies own most of the traffic, and high profile mergers have further reduced the options for phone owners.

Recently, though, all that is changing due to the arrival of operators such as GiffGaff who offer Free Sim Cards to people to use, assuming their mobile isn't locked. GiffGaff is an award winning operator, and posseses a model that could inspire major changes within the phone market.

First up, the community aspect is very fundamental. The company's discussion boards are significant and highly busy, these aid newcomers in getting the best deals and avoid common pitfalls.

Then there's the reward part, if you talk to new and they join, you get a payback, either financially or as a donation to a charity of your choice. This offering strengthens people's link with the network and makes them want to refer more friends, like the viral version of a phone network.

Yet another different part of the model is the web only setup, to limit costs and send on benefits to customers, GiffGaff only exists on the world wide web, and it saves additional costs by piggybacking on O2s signal. The result is that we get the best bits of both worlds, network access everywhere, and a range of optional deals that are often trialled by members of the forums.

That said, GiffGaff is not the sole new mobile operator to use other networks signals, in fact, it's a very profitable model which can yield useful savings for their members.

The difference is, though, that this particular operator has most customers than the competition because it's more practised at developing a connection with members. In the decade of companies like Facebook and non stop interaction with brands, an entire business model constructed on customer interaction is practically a nailed on success.