Gen Mobile: Connecting the American Dream

By Robert Yap

My parents grew up in the Philippines. Both in large families and starting from little means.  They focused on their schoolwork and enjoyed watching American movies at the theater. With this window into the America of Elvis in the 1960’s, they aspired to come to the land of freedom and opportunity.  Thanks to their hard work and their American dream, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, with the opportunity to become whatever I wanted to be.  And with their support, I became a lawyer and, eventually, the president of a telecommunications company.

After years in the telecom industry, it became clear to me that those of little means had little to no access to our services.  Nearly 20% of Americans still have limited access to the internet. And the big companies that I have worked for were more interested in pushing more data, more services, and more bundles, than finding a way to connect those left behind.

With the support of like-minded telecom executives, Gen Mobile was founded to solve this problem. We launched Gen Mobile on the basic premise that everyone should be able to connect to friends and family nationally and internationally, should be able to access educational resources, should be able to look for a job, and should be able to access the digital world.  Without online connectivity, the people left out will not have the chance to pursue the American Dream.

To help affordably connect more Americans to opportunity, Gen Mobile designed low-cost plans and give customers the flexibility to switch between them from month to month depending on their budget and/or data needs.  What we have found is that many of our customers are relieved that Gen Mobile helps them save money on their wireless service while providing them extra cash to pay for other critical essentials.  We have also found that many of our customers are just being money-wise shoppers who have discovered that unlimited data plans are a waste, especially with Wi-Fi access available at home, work, and nearly every restaurant and store.  In trying to solve the problem of connecting those left behind, we have also created a great way for other customers to save their money for things that they want rather than wasting it on services that they don’t need.

So, if you choose Gen Mobile, thank you for supporting us and our goal of affordably connecting more and more of America to each other, to emergency services, to digital resources, and to the American Dream.