Zevvle (pronounced zeh-vul), a new mobile operator in the West Midlands using EE’s network, is putting an end to the £800m wasted each year by 12 million SIM-only customers overpaying for data they don’t use. With a modern take on the classic pay-as-you-go (PAYG), “Zevvle customers enjoy lower rates and credit that never expires without worrying about wasting data or rapacious out-of-bundle charges,” says co-founder and CEO Nick Goodall.
Goodall, who started the company in Birmingham when he was 22 after an awful experience with a major operator, is building the kind of network he and his brother and co-founder, Tim, want to use: an honest, transparent company with fair pricing and excellent customer service — 3 things that are sorely missing from the industry.
PAYG started with a bang in the 90s, but networks soon realised they could sell under-used data bundles and sting customers with high prices for exceeding their allowance. By re-thinking how a network is run and building their technology in-house, Zevvle have been able to lower prices and bring a fairer model to their customers.
“There’s a tension with mis-aligned incentives,” says Goodall. “Consumers want a fair deal from a network they can trust, and operators want to sell more data that isn’t used. And it’s consumers that lose out, as evidenced by the report from Citizen’s Advice — 12 million SIM-only customers each waste £63 per year on average.”
Alongside fair and transparent pricing, Zevvle also make it trivial for customers to manage multiple SIMs with their modern mobile apps on Android and iOS — something that used to be cumbersome where you’d need many logins and payment details. With a shared account balance and free inter-account calls, they’ve made it easy for people with children, extra phones, tablets, Wi-Fi routers, and even connected cars.
