A:Answer According to a February PhoneNews report, Total Wireless is owned by América Móvil, which also operates the TracFone Wireless family of MVNO brands. The report also said that the Total Wireless service runs on Verizon's
This phone supports all the big 4 major carriers as well as the MNVOs. These are the smaller carriers that piggy back on the larger ones network. MNVOs are mobile virtual network operators. MVNOs are small carriers that lease cellular coverage and data bandwidth from — or share it with — a member of the Big Four, then resell it to customers. Hence the “virtual network” part of the name: MVNOs don’t own any actual hardware. The Big Four own and operate it.
Sometimes these MVNOs are wholly owned by the bigger carriers; for example, AT&T owns Cricket Wireless and allows it to operate on the AT&T network. Other MVNOs are independent entities, like Republic Wireless or Consumer Cellular, that lease space on someone else’s network.
You’ll see Sprint’s name pop up in a lot of these agreements, as it has been relatively friendly to MVNOs compared to other big carriers. It has a history of selling data at wholesale rates — as Gigaom reported in 2012, when MVNOs were newly resurgent — and, thanks to its weak market position relative to AT&T and Verizon, it has an interest in cultivating any competitive advantage it can.
