Tonight, after months of financial trouble, Amp’d Mobile sent all its customers a text message detailing the MVNO’s official shut down date, Tuesday July 24th at 12:01 AM.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a MVNO, the term MVNO stands for “Mobile Virtual Network Operator”. A MVNO doesn’t have its own cellular network but leases space from another carrier. Amp’d Mobile leases its space from Verizon Wireless but hasn’t been able to pay the network giant recently.

The text message is, in one form or another, inevitable after Amp’d Mobile filed for bankruptcy in June of 2007. According to the Mathaba News Agency, currently Amp’d Mobile costs Verizon Wireless $370,000 a day.

Yet the virtual carrier has fought time and time again in court to keep the struggling business alive.  U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon gave the MVNO a second chance. The terms of the agreement were for Amp’d Mobile to pay 2.5 million dollars to Verizon in order to continue using its services.

Verizon responded with the following in a court filing:

“While it is not the court’s responsibility to second-guess the debtor’s business decisions, it is the court’s responsibility to protect creditors’ interests from the actions of inexperienced, incapable or foolhardy management.”

The Associate Press indicates that Amp’d Mobile has used up over $350 million of investors money but will be down to just $9,000 this coming Monday, only to shut down the next day at 12:01 AM in the morning.  

Related:

Amp’d mobile broke, files for bankruptcy

Microsoft will fix DNS vulnerability on Patch Tuesday

Samsung and Armani team up for mobile phone and LCD TVs

365 Main power failure demonstrates Internet weakness

Verizon’s Motorola Q9m may hit stores by end of July

Entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 am under Mobile phones.  Print This Post

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