Zer01, the new wireless carrier offering unlimited voice and data plans for just $69.95, has gone official with their network at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas. Since their initial announcement earlier this month, Zer01 has been working hard to make it publicly known that they are not an MVNO. Given the MVNO fad’s spectacular failure last year, it’s not surprising that Zer01 would want to distance themselves from the “MVNO” label. But, are they really a “new” wireless carrier?
Zer01 CEO Ben Piilani took some time to give us a run-down on just what makes Zer01 such an innovative new wireless carrier. He starts off by explaining how Zer01 uses cell-towers throughout the US to route voice calls and data through Zer01’s own back-end servers. By licensing access to cell towers across the country, Zer01 can hook up just about any smartphone into their network. Zer01 manages to keep costs low and offer sub-$70 unlimited wireless plans by treating all network communications as data, which is routed through Zer01’s IP-based network. Voice calls are transformed into data packets and sent through Zer01’s redundant communications servers (note, they’re not sent over a carrier’s circuit-switched network).
Zer01 touts itself as an open network. Any smartphone user is welcome to bring their own smartphone to the Zer01 network. Getting Zer01 service is as easy as picking up a Zer01 SIM card, paying a $30 one-time activation fee, registering the Zer01 SIM online and popping the SIM into the smartphone. The Zer01 network will automatically detect the new SIM and send configuration files to your handset over-the-air. It really doesn’t get much easier than that.
Zer01 is in beta at the moment, which means we won’t be seeing any commercially available Zer01 service until July. During the beta we’ll only see Windows Mobile smartphones supported on Zer01’s network, but we’re told that all smartphone platforms (iPhone OS, Android OS, Symbian OS, BlackBerry) will be supported within a year. Zer01 did, however, have a few Pharos smartphones on hand to demonstrate Zer01’s wireless service. The company demonstrated its custom widget-based “phone-top” interface to give users a convenient and intuitive UI to use on their smartphone. The Zer01 phone-top serves as a launching point to access social networks, email, text messages and even a proprietary dialler that is needed to make voice calls.
We can’t wait to put Zer01 through its paces. Mr. Piilani assured us that Zer01’s VoIP algorithms and data-on-demand (remember, Zer01 doesn’t use carriers’ network communications, which allows for maximum data throughput) makes for an uncompromised voice calling experience. We’ll reserve judgment until we can get our hands on some actual Zer01 hardware. For now, at least, we’re impressed.