Red Pocket Mobile is looking to expand its operations by entering new markets. Last month, the MVNO issued a press release with little fanfare to announce a newly formed partnership with Vonage.
Vonage is a cloud based communications platform for businesses. It allows businesses to connect to their network to programmatically access Vonage's voice, SMS, and video calling platforms to customize them for their specific needs. As a result of this partnership, Red Pocket Mobile is now selling business plans starting at $30/month. One of the two business plans that Red Pocket is offering utilizes the Vonage platform, the other does not.
Red Pocket's Base Business Plan Is Priced At $30
Red Pocket's base business plan is priced at $30/month per line. It includes unlimited everything, with the first 25GB of data available each month at high-speeds before throttling to 2G data speeds. The plan is available for use on the customer's choice of either the AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon networks. It is not available for individuals. Customers must have a minimum of 5-lines to subscribe to it. By contrast, for individuals, Red Pocket has a separate $30/month plan that includes unlimited everything with only 10GB of high-speed data each month on the customer's choice of any network.
Red Pocket's base business plan doesn't offer any other features compared to its consumer oriented plans. The only thing it seems to bring to the table over its consumer plans is that it supports up to 50-lines if ordered online. Businesses that need more than 50-lines qualify for an Executive Enterprise account and are told they can email Red Pocket at [email protected] to get that setup.
Customers that step up to Red Pocket's $45/month business plan will get business oriented features thanks to their partnership with Vonage. The features added by Vonage include:
- Access to mobile and desktop apps for cloud based calls, texts, and lead meetings
- Unlimited team meetings with video collaboration
- Call forwarding to multiple extensions
- Voicemail transcriptions
- A virtual assistant to help answer calls
- A free local company number, additional numbers are $9.99/month. So customers can have two numbers. Their Red Pocket number plus the additional number from Vonage
Both Vonage and Red Pocket have webpages set up on their respective websites that detail their plans and partnership. You can view Red Pocket's here, and Vonage's here. You may also want to check out the video down below, which explains what the Vonage platform is all about.
Aside from the Vonage added features, the $45 plan is built off of Red Pocket's $30 plan and so it also includes 25GB of high-speed data per line. The same 50-line limit for online orders is also in place. Customers can actually mix and match the $45 and $30 plans on an account, but for online orders the total number of lines on an account still cannot surpass 50. Taxes and fees are extra with each plan.
The "MVNO phone plans for your business" model does seem to be largely untapped, or at least not heavily marketed by the MVNOs that offer it. The AT&T MVNO PureTalk sells business plans, but they seem like an afterthought on PureTalk's website. The Tracfone brand, Clearway Wireless, sells them exclusively. And then there's DataXoom, which specializes in selling mobile data to businesses.
Given this is a largely untapped market, I asked Jeff Moore, Principal of the firm Wave7 Research what he thinks about this new partnership. He commented: "This is a good move for Red Pocket. Too many MVNOs neglect business sales and the partnership with Vonage makes sense for winning business accounts."