After kickstarting a bun fight with Optus over the use of the words Boost Mobile, Peter Adderton, the CEO and founder of Boost Mobile, is back doing what he does best, growing a disruptive business, this time in the US.

His latest project is built around using AI to deliver monthly service plans at less than half the average cost of the major national UWS networks, and where better to kick it off than in the US where competition for mobile consumers is brutal.

 

Called MobileX, Adderton is two weeks into the launch of an unlimited pay-as-you go plan starting at $20-a-month that includes an artificial intelligence-powered virtual guide that can anticipate a user’s needs and customise plans based on their spending.

Set to return to Australia in May, when he is tipped to hold discussions with carriers, Adderton believes the Mobile X service could slash the cost of smartphone plans “dramatically” in Australia, where consumers are being lured into expensive data plans that in most cases result in a “massive amount of data” that consumers have paid for not being used.

Analysts ChannelNews have spoken to claim Adderton’s approach could dramatically “disrupt” the Australian market, while lowering costs for consumers without compromising network quality.

Adderton claims that up to 60 to 70% of data consumers have paid for are not being used, and when carriers lift prices and then claim that they are delivering additional data expansion the only winner is the carriers, as the expanded data offer will never be used.

With Mobile X, carriers can attract new people to their network that are looking for value, claims Adderton.

Speaking to ChannelNews from the US, Adderton believes carriers in Australia need to engage more in disruptive marketing to grow their customer bases.

“With a Mobile X offering they can become a consumers best friend especially in a downturn market such as we are now experiencing”.

Consumers have been lulled into expensive plans with unlimited data, free phones and complementary streaming services, claims Adderton.

Mobile X is all about usage and consumers only paying for what they use.

 

In the US, Adderton is partnering with Horizon to roll out his offering.

“If you wake up the lazy people, the big carriers are going to have a problem,” Adderton says. “And our business is to wake them up.”

Adderton, who founded Boost Mobile in 2001 with hope that the prepaid service could dominate the youth wireless market, sold the US rights to Boost Mobile to Nextel in 2004.

The company is now owned by Dish.

Today Boost Mobile in the US uses the merged T-Mobile network (Sprint + T-Mobile) and AT&T to deliver wireless services.

During COVID lockdowns Adderton, said he is interested in buying back Boost.