Dennis Castle Millenicom Interview - Hear what the CEO & Owner has to say!

Millenicom offers a variety of prepaid broadband products and services, including USB modems, and a MiFi hotspot running on 3G and 4G wireless broadband.  Dennis Castle, CEO and Owner, was kind enough to answer some questions about his company.  Thank you for your time Dennis! Interview Date:  November 10, 2011
1.	Can you share some of the history of Millenicom, what inspired you to start the company, as well as describe the origin of the name? [Castle] Millenicom began in June of 1998, the exciting approach of the new millennium, and, thus, the choice of the name.  I always assumed this whole computer/Internet thing would catch on.
2.	How many employees and customers does Millenicom currently have? [Castle] The IRS is always asking those questions.
3.	Prepaid broadband is becoming increasingly popular with all major carriers making a play; how does Millenicom differentiate yourself? [Castle] We are already prepaid, in the sense that a customer pays for the upcoming month.  The fact we don’t require a contract frees the client to start and stop service at their discretion.
4.	Millenicom is an MVNO of Sprint and Verizon, correct?  I assume certain devices run on one carrier or the other.  Can a Sprint modem roam on Verizon and vice versa due to your relationships?  Do customers need to be concerned about where they will have coverage? [Castle] Unfortunately the Plans are all carrier-specific.  One (major) benefit from us is if a client moves from one coverage area to another they can switch Plans and we can apply service fees seamlessly to the new one.
5.	The prepaid broadband market started with truly unlimited plans, however, once consumers really started to catch on, carriers quickly moved to capped or severely throttled plans to ensure a profitable business plan.  Millenicom’s current plans appear to be of very high value (i.e. a high data allowance for a comparatively competitive price).  In addition, the MVNO model is notoriously expensive; do you feel that this pricing is sustainable if customers truly use that much data?   [Castle] Although we run into clients that use a daunting amount of data transfer, it is surprising to note that our aggregate usage for those on our Unlimited Plan is under 2 gigabytes a month.
6.	Does Millenicom have any plans to launch a pay-as-you-go plan that allows customers to load funds and pay either per MB or per day for a given data allotment?  I ask because I get a LOT of inquiries from customers who don’t want to commit to a monthly expense, but rather would like to use it occasionally for a few days, on the weekends, or a week at a time here and there. [Castle] Our system of monthly service without a contract is the closest we can come to the classic prepay system with cell phones.
7.	The data allotment between the Advanced Plan and the Standard Plan is so dramatically different based on whether or not the customer buys a modem; can you describe the strategy/positioning around this approach? [Castle] We initially allowed 5 gigabytes for the Standard Plan and then negotiated a 10 gigabyte service for the Advanced Plan.  After a period of time we were able to make the Advanced Plan more attractive.
8.	Where are Millenicom products currently distributed?  Do you have plans for dealer or retail expansion? [Castle] Millenicom is exclusively online, we ship out of Portland OR.  We are holding off generating retail locations until we have a facility-based solution.
9.	Do you have any plans for international programs that either allow for Millenicom modems to roam internationally, or to be activated on international local carrier services? [Castle] Our current strategy is to create an alliance with International mobile broadband companies where our clients use their service while they are in their country and we allow their clients to use our service while traveling in the States.  That strategy is easier said than done, though.  Many countries have one or two socialized carriers who have limited incentive to provide such an excellent system for their clients.
10.	Is there anything else that you would like for prospective customers to know about Millenicom as they contemplate their prepaid broadband options? [Castle] We offer the fastest and most reliable mobile broadband service available, we offer the largest nationwide coverage by far, we offer the largest amount of monthly data transfer. We have a peerless reputation amongst those who live in rural areas, those who travel such as truckers and RV’ers, those who need to move fast and furious like storm chasers and the like.  If you look up their forums online you’ll see the name Millenicom appear often. It is our desire to be as clear and straight-forward to our prospective clients as possible.  We don’t hide fees, we don’t charge overage, we don’t insist on a contract.  We can be reached 24-hours using our chat interface or by emailing us or by calling.
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