Cellular networks are owned and operated by Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s). MNO’s own and operate all the equipment and license the frequency spectrum required from the local government. In the UK, there are currently four MNO’s – EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three.
Below this are Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s). These can include anything from supermarkets to low cost startup network operators in the smartphone world. However in IoT, new types of MVNO are being created – see here for a short introduction to these.
Creating a mobile operator from scratch is not the core market of many of these companies. To assist with all the administration and setup and management of the network, there are Mobile Virtual Network Enablers (MVNE’s). Again there are MVNE’s for the consumer smartphone market, and MVNE’s for IoT including Transatel, Tata Communications and several others.