The People's Operator

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The People's Operator LLP
Limited Liability Partnership
Industry Mobile Phones
Founded 2012
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Key people
 Mark Epstein (CEO),
Jimmy Wales (Chairman)
Products Mobile Telephony
Website thepeoplesoperator.com
tpo.com

The People's Operator (TPO) is a mobile virtual network operator that provides mobile phone services in the United Kingdom and the United States via the EE and the Sprint networks, respectively. It was launched in 2012, with the stated aim of being an ethical mobile network operator. TPO asserts that the service gives customers the opportunity to support their selected causes and receive updates on how their money is being spent, while businesses can fulfill their corporate social responsibility commitments.[1]

History

2012-2013: Launch

TPO was launched on 19 November 2012. At launch, it was owned entirely by its three co-founders, Andrew Rosenfeld, Tom Gutteridge and Mark Epstein.[2] The organisation is based in Shoreditch, London. It was established with the stated aim of being an ethical mobile phone operator.[3] At launch, Rosenfeld was the Chairman, with Gutteridge and Epstein as vice-chairs, and Alex Franks as the chief executive.[4][5]

2014-present: Partnership with Jimmy Wales and expansion

On 20 January 2014 TPO announced that Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales had joined the organisation on a £250,000 annual salary[6] as co-chair of the board, and had "taken a strategic stake in the business." Wales was quoted as saying that "TPO has huge potential for viral growth and the more it grows, the more money will pass to the people and communities that need it."[7][8] TPO announced in January 2014 that it is aiming to launch its services in the United States and Europe within the next 12 months.[7][9] In October 2014, the company announced that it intended to list on London's Alternative Investment Market. It was estimated by Oscar Williams-Grut that the company could be worth ₤100 million upon its initial public offering.[10]

2015: US launch

Shortly after the December 2014 initial public offering raised £20 million of new money for TPO, the company's stock was reviewed in The Telegraph, which calculated the firm's value at less than £1 million, or a mere 1.3 pence per share, yielding an "Avoid" rating. However, the review noted that House broker finnCap disagreed, placing a 250-pence target price on the shares, and expected TPO to generate £98 million revenue and pre-tax profits of £17.1 million by the end of 2016.[11]

TPO officially launched in the United States on July 21, 2015.[12][13] The service runs as an MVNO on top of the Sprint wireless network, and offered prospective customers a $32-per-month option with unlimited talk time and text messages and 2 gigabytes of data.[14][15]

In late September 2015, the company reported its financial performance through the first six months of the year, revealing it had significantly widened its pretax loss to £4,400,000, from a year-earlier loss of only £600,000.[16]

2015-16: collapse in share price

Between October 2015 and March 2016, the company saw a collapse in its share price from 130p to below 30p.[17]

Services

As a mobile virtual network operator, TPO does not own any network infrastructure, but instead uses the EE network to provide its services in the United Kingdom[2] (although it did not initially disclose which network it would use),[18] and the Sprint network in the United States. It uses the virtual network aggregator Transatel to connect to the EE network.[5]

Since it was launched, TPO has offered pay-as-you-go services.[2] The organisation does not have stores, operating entirely online, but it has an in-house call centre.[3]

At launch, the costs of calls and texts were deemed competitive with other mobile phone operators, costing 12.5p/minute for calls (with free calls between TPO users), 7.5p/text and 12.5p/MB for data.[4] It was noted that the company may need to offer a better data rate,[18] which was later halved.[19] TPO started offering monthly contracts in April 2013, at prices between £5 and £25.[20][21]

The People's Operator announced that it would be moving to the Three UK network in the first quarter of 2016, which would give its customers LTE 4G services. [22]

The People's Operator Foundation

25% of TPO's profit goes to The People's Operator Foundation, which is an independent group that funds charities and community groups in the UK. In addition, customers can optionally give 10% of the amount they spend on calls, texts and data[2] (pre-VAT)[3] to a specific charity or community group. Organisations that sign up new customers to TPO also receive 10% of the customer's call, text and data spend.[2] In order to not cost its customers more than other networks, this 10% comes from TPO's marketing budget.[8]

TPO established partnerships with NSPCC, The Trussell Trust, Dimbleby Cancer Care and Childline prior to its launch,[3][4] and by April 2013 it had partnered with the Children’s Heart Foundation, RE:generate and Caxton House, and was planning a partnership with The Big Issue Foundation.[20][21]

In September 2013, the Labour Party also announced a partnership with TPO; according to Wired UK, party members are encouraged to "sign up to the mobile operator in order to give 10 percent of their bill back to the party."[23] Unite the Union, a British and Irish trade union, has a similar TPO partnership.[23] In November 2013 The Daily Telegraph reported that Unite's deal with TPO included free phone calls and texts for members of its strike committee and that this capability was being used as a part of a "campaign of intimidation" against bosses at the Grangemouth Refinery.[24] In November 2013, Rosenfeld, a Labour Party donor, denied to The Times that The People's Operator "had aided Unite in dirty tricks campaigns during industrial disputes."[25]

As of January 2014 TPO had also partnered with Islington Giving, and Wales hopes that the foundation will also support Wikipedia in the future.[8]

TPO Foundation is a registered charity,[26] and as of 2012 the trustees were Sir Christopher Kelly (chair), Kevin Curley, and Andrew Rosenfeld.[5] On 8 February 2015, Rosenfeld died after a short illness.[27] In October 2015, it was announced that Rosenfeld's son James had been appointed as a non-executive Director of the firm.[28]

TPO Community

In 2015 The People's Operator launched its TPO Community, an advertisement-free social network.[29] The community offers users a space where they can talk about the charities and causes they support and donate to the causes directly. The Community website was also supported in a press release by Jimmy Wales [30][31]

References

  1. ↑ The People's Operator About-Us (Accessed: 01-Oct-14)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ AIM Admission document; The People’s Operator plc (incorporated and registered in England and Wales with registered no. 09083874) Placing of 15,384,616 Ordinary Shares at 130 pence per share and Admission of Enlarged Share Capital to trading on AIM; 28 November 2014
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. See also the endorsement on the Unite the Union website.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ The People's Operator: Appointment of Non-Executive Director; RNS Number: 4892D; 27 October 2015.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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