Alibaba’s MVNO Arm Opens Virtual Mobile Number for Preorder

Ali Telecom, the MVNO unit of Alibaba Group, has officially launched “Qinxin” brand, which the company will use to market its virtual telecom service. The affiliate also opened its mobile phone numbers for preorder today with each user can reserve up to 4 phone numbers for free. The service will be released in the coming June.

Like other MVNOs, Ali Telecom don’t own telecommunications infrastructure, but provide services through network access they have leased at wholesale rates from other mobile operators.

All the phone numbers under Qinxin brand will begin with “170”. Services begin with the phone number of “1700”, “1705” and “1709” will be wholesaled from China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, respectively.

The first batch of Ali Telecom’s mobile numbers will begin with “1709”, supporting 3G and 2G networks run by China Unicom.

These mobile numbers will be registered in 25 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, etc. A representative from the company noted that the billing standard of mobile numbers with different registration locations will be the same and no roaming fees will be charged.

Alibaba once mentioned that their focus will be data services that will be available for the company’s existing services, Taobao, Alipay, Aliyun, etc.

Several MVNOs licensed by the authorities have opened their mobile numbers for preorder since the beginning of this May, including electronics chains Telephone World and Suning and mobile phone chain Dphone.

image credit: Ali Telecom