A mobile carrier, or sometimes also called mobile operator or wireless carrier, is a company that provides mobile network service to the end users. Typically, mobile carriers will own a cellular network infrastructure, which is necessary to provide services such as voice call, short message service or SMS, and internet functionality.

Types of mobile carrier

Usually, it can be categorized as follows:

Mobile Network Operator (MNO)

Mobile network operators will invest and own their own physical network infrastructure, such as radio towers, equipment, and licensed spectrum. To operate in their own country, a mobile network operator must obtain a radio spectrum license from a regulatory or government entity. This is to ensure that all mobile operators will operate their service via their allocated frequencies, thus minimizing the possibility of interference between each other.

Some famous examples of MNOs are Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Vodafone in the United States.

Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO)

This type of operator does not own a physical network infrastructure or spectrum. Instead, they rent the network service from an MNO, and then resell it as their service to their customers. As they do not own the network infrastructure, their operating cost can be relatively low, and thus often able to offer competitive pricing for their service.

Some of the examples of MVNOs are Google Fi which is using the T-Mobile network, and Boost Mobile which is using the AT&T and T-Mobile networks.

Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE)

A Mobile Virtual Network Enabler provides the network infrastructure and other related services such as an operational support system to an MVNO.

Unlike MVNO, they do not interact with the end user directly. Instead, they act as a middleman between the MNO and the MVNO. Some smaller MVNOs will approach them to obtain access to the network infrastructure easily, compared to directly negotiating with an MNO. Smaller MVNOs also get the benefit of easily reaching a wholesale agreement with the MNO.

Some of the examples of MVNEs are FreedomPop and Plintron.

How are users going to trace mobile carrier based on IP address?

By having an IP address, user can trace the connection back to a mobile carrier using the following methods:

Identify through the IP ranges of the IP address

Most of the time, the IP addresses shall be owned by a mobile carrier, regardless of the type of the mobile carrier. Hence, by getting the IP ranges from the IP addresses, users are able to perform IP range ownership query to try to identify the mobile carrier. Some online WHOIS lookup tools are capable of providing the details of the organization that owns the IP ranges. Some examples are ARIN in North America and RIPE in Europe.

Leverage the use of IP Geolocation database

IP geolocation databases often contain the details of the IP address, including the location and also the associated mobile carrier if applicable. Users can skip the hassle of converting the IP address into the corresponding IP range by using those databases. This is because those databases often have the corresponding SDKs that helps to lookup the IP address directly.

IP2Location is one of the IP geolocation database providers that provides a comprehensive range of geolocation information including mobile carrier information. It supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, making it effortless for the user to lookup the information.

What information does IP2Location provide

In IP2Location, we will return mobile_brand, a commercial brand name associated with the mobile carrier if related. In addition, we also return two different pieces of information that is handy for uniquely identifying a mobile phone operator or carrier.

This information are the Mobile Country Codes (MCC) and the Mobile Network Code (MNC). An MCC will have three decimal digits, where the first digit of the mobile country code identifies the geographic region.

For instance,
0: Test networks
2: Europe
3: North America and the Caribbean
4: Asia and the Middle East
5: Australia and Oceania
6: Africa
7: South and Central America
9: Worldwide (Satellite, Air—aboard aircraft, Maritime—aboard ships, Antarctica)

An MNC, on the other hand, consists of two to three decimal digits.

A combination of MCC and MNC will be used to identify a mobile carrier that is using any mobile networks, such as GSM, UMTS, LTE, and 5G.

Let’s say you saw a combination of MCC code 310 and MNC code of 410. You can easily know that it’s referring to the AT&T’s network in the United States.

How useful is the mobile carrier information?

Fraud prevention and detection

Believe it or not, the mobile carrier information can be used to determine if the online customer is a potential fraudster. As an online merchant, these information will come handy when analyzing a customer’s connection pattern. If a customer used an IP address from another mobile carrier out of the blue, it might give an earlier warning that the customer’s account has been hacked by someone else.

Also, there are situations where the merchant wants to ensure that their customer only connects to their service using a non-VPN IP address. Since a VPN IP address is not owned by a mobile carrier, merchants can use this as a strong indicator against their customer.

Content delivery optimization

Mobile carrier information often comes with the location data. Hence, it can enable a website to deliver a more geographically relevant content or even display the contents in the local language. For example, if the mobile carrier originates from Spain, we can serve Spanish content to the user.

Also, some mobile carriers had different network speeds and technologies, for instance 4G vs. 5G. With the mobile carrier information, a content provider can provide a better user experience by adjusting the content quality accordingly. For example, a video streaming site could adjust the default streaming resolution based on the network capacity of the mobile carrier.

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