Techniques for cellular network subscriber management. A request for cellular service is received at a base station from a mobile device. The base station is communicatively coupled to a plurality of other base stations using a virtual private network (VPN) connection. It is determined, based on a first communication from the base station to a database using the VPN connection, that the mobile device does not have a recognized associated identifier, and in response an identifier for the mobile device is assigned. A second communication is routed from the base station to the mobile device using the identifier.