Hawaiian MVNO Mobi advanced plans to expand into the continental US 5G market, tapping T-Mobile US as its network partner and commencing a pilot service employing a cloud-based core from Working Group Two (WG2).

WG2 stated Mobi is accessing a core network compatible with 4G, 5G and IMS technologies which run on AWS’ cloud set-up. The operator claimed the approach gives it a faster time to market to deploy new services and applications.

Mobi will be able to use APIs to activate specific services for every SIM or user once the core integration is completed, WG2 stated.

The prepaid service runs on T-Mobile’s 5G network without territorial restrictions.

Mobi CEO Justen Burdette told Mobile World Live (MWL) the company planned to launch roaming in Canada and Mexico in the current quarter.

“Because of the versatility of the WG2 platform, we’ll be able to add several additional countries each month to that list.”

AvidThink analyst Roy Chua noted the benefits of WG2’s cloud-based core: “The WG2 team undertook a significant effort in writing a mobile core from scratch using a cloud-native architecture,” he told MWL.

“Deciding to build a fully-managed converged mobile core as-a-service was a big bet when they started many years ago, but it appears to be paying off” as operators warm to “running key parts of their network infrastructure in the cloud”.

He noted integration with other AWS services and quick inclusion of applications into WG2’s marketplace demonstrated the value of its approach along with the potential to bolster operator ARPU.