Amp’d mobile broke, files for bankruptcy
By Jonathan Schlaffer
I can’t say I’m surprised. I never could figure out what Amp’d mobile was all about or what they offered over everyone else like Verizon or AT&T (formerly Cingular). At any rate Amp’d mobile has decided it would be in its best interest to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
This doesn’t mean the company is going out of business, it just means that it has some major reorganizing and changes to plan before getting back into the game.
According to Engadget, Amp’d mobile has 200,000 subscribers, a number that I can’t believe will sustain any cell phone company, just look at the millions of subscribers on services like Verizon or AT&T.
It takes a lot of customers to sustain a business like that and if you ask me, Amp’d just doesn’t have the numbers right now. That’s not to say there won’t be more users that choose Amp’d in the future but I highly doubt it.
Thinking on this immediately made me think of Helio, you know, the people that say “don’t call it a phone, don’t call us a phone company.” Then what should I call it? I don’t know what to call it but the one word that comes to mind is expesnive. With prices for their phones ranging from $145 to $295 with a plan and the basic “All In” plan costs $65 per month with 500 minutes of talk time. And let’s face it, a Helio is useless without all the other “unlimited use” services includes in the “All In” plans.
Helio will probably eventually head the way of Amp’d mobile if their prices don’t come down, of course, it’s too early to say but that’s my early prediction.
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June 3rd, 2007
wow what a poorly writen article - I hope people dont take your comments as fact based reporting.
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Cant understand the difference between cingular and Amp’d - wow where do I start with that comment.
June 3rd, 2007
200,000 subscribers should be plenty to sustain a company, well at least keep it from going bankrupt. If each customer pays $100 a month in bills that works out to $240 Million a year. If you can’t sustain a company off of that revenue then god help you. The execs at Amp’d are morons.
June 3rd, 2007
This is so incredibly poorly written. There seems to be a complete and total lack of any research. The differences between AT&T, etc. are clear. Also, Helio’s prices include unlimited text, unlimited email, unlimited web browsing(Full HTML on the Ocean), unlimited GPS with Google Maps, etc. Educate yourself before you make posts.
June 3rd, 2007
Hence my mention of the $65 per month “all in plan” - I suppose it was too much to assume that people would know what “all in” means. That’s with 500 minutes of talk time.
The point is not everyone is going to go for the all in plan and no, I didn’t bother checking the other plans. I would have had to cross reference AT&T, Verizon, Amp’d and T-Mobile for good measure.
That’s a lot of work, it’s even more work if you want a break down.
This was not a comparison hence, not important hence I didn’t bother. You don’t need to know that for the purposes of this article and my personal opinion is that Amp’d is a gimmick. and therefore not worth my, yours or anyone else’s time.
200,000 is not a lot of subscribers compared to the millions on AT&T and Verizon.
June 3rd, 2007
you are a moron … really you are … how did you get this job?
i normally dont post but your article is the worst out of all the articles written about the mvno market.
do you even know what mvno is? based on your article you dont know jack …
June 5th, 2007
Amp’d operates on Verizon’s network. Every Amp’s sub is ultimately a Verizon sub. You can’t compare the two. As for it being a gimmick, today yes, in the future, the business model will likely take hold in some form. That said, their current management screwed up. Most of those boys - Stone, Dobie, Swenson - grew up at Airtouch. They know what it takes to run a profitable service provider, and they seemed to have forgotten everything they learned in previous lives. My bet, Verizon assumes the brand name and runs it as a nitch product line until they figure out how to make mobile media more palatable for the mass market.
February 20th, 2008
Well cell phones are all gay things to have since is not like the internet one regular price. Amp mobile sucks perioed Helio might succed