UK Mobile Brand The People’s Operator Returns After Going Bust in 2019
One of our readers has spotted (here) that mobile operator TPO (The People’s Operator) appears to be in the process of gearing up for a relaunch into the UK market, which may come as a surprise to many after the original company went bust in early 2019 (here) – disrupting services for around 15,000 customers in the process.
The revived brand appears to be backed by Uplands Mobiles (Uplands Onetelco Ltd) and aims to “encourage reusing, recycling, and refurbishing mobile devices to cut down on e-waste” (i.e. offering customers cash to recycle their old gadgets), while also committing to contribute “10% of our profits … to causes you care about“.
The refreshed brand has been live online for a while, but they recently added a wait list for their mobile service. “Our wait list is now live. Join today and be first to experience the new TPO eSIM with an amazing founder deal, transparent values, and connectivity that does good,” said the service via social media in October 2025.
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The only eSIM plan currently being promoted for this appears to be promising unlimited calls, text and data (mobile broadband) for £15 per month via an eSIM on a 30-day rolling contract. But there’s also vague talk of a “transparent fair usage” policy, which will apparently only be used for “extreme misuse, with notice“. At present, it’s unclear what mobile network (MVNO) this will harness, although the site uses the plural “networks“, suggesting it may be a UK roaming style plan.
The big question now is, once it does finally launch, whether consumers will still trust the brand after the last attempt failed.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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