A mobile phone company is - as MNO - a company that offers public mobile communications services for residential and business customers. For this purpose, this phone Company applied for or acquired (eg. For example by means of an auction) a broadcasting license with a governmental agency. Subsequently, the licensee is building an infrastructure (today in the majority of cases a GSM, UMTS or LTE network) that covers a specific geographic area of the corresponding license. The services provided are either by a prepaid card or by means of a monthly bill (postpaid), which usually also includes a basic fee, billed.

In contrast, to the mobile operators other mobile companies have specialized on the resale of mobile services, MVNE, and MVNOs.