Low cost MVNO Aldi Mobile will continue to operate as usual, after it struck a deal directly with Telstra wholesale following the collapse of original wholesale provider ispONE.
ispONE, which sells Telstra 3G services in Australia to MVNO's Aldi Mobile and Kogan Mobile, today informed Telstra wholesale that it has entered voluntary administration, effectively cancelling its contract to provide 3G mobile services.
However, Telstra wholesale has announced that it has entered into an "interim agreement" direct with Medion Australia, who sells mobile service through the Aldi Mobile brand.
"Telstra Wholesale has entered into an interim agreement with Medion Australia for the supply of wholesale prepaid mobile services. Medion is the supplier to ALDIMobile.""Because Medion and Telstra Wholesale have been able to negotiate a direct supply agreement there will be no changes to the services for ALDIMobile."
ispONE was due in court tomorrow to fight allegations from Telstra that it owes around $12 million in unpaid bills. However, the Australian Federal Court today dismissed the case, effectively also dismissing Telstra's appeal against an injunction placed on the company last week.
"Telstra Wholesale has been advised that ispONE has appointed Ferrier Hodgson as a voluntary administrator and the administrator has cancelled ispONE’s contracts for the supply of Telstra Wholesale pre-paid mobile products."
While Aldi Mobile services will not be affected following the collapse of ispONE, Kogan Mobile will be shut down.
Telstra Wholesale's group managing director, Stuart Lee, has confirmed that Telstra would not be accepting any requests for new Kogan Mobile services from ispONE.
"For mobiles, we will not be accepting new activations, number port-ins or processing credit recharges from ispONE on behalf of Kogan Mobile.""An interim service will be available for a fixed period of time for people who have active pre-paid mobile services from Kogan Mobile so they have time to choose their next steps."
Telstra wholesale has also published a statement on its Web site detailing the process to "progressively deactivate" Kogan Mobile customers over the next 30 days.
The telco will move all active Kogan Mobile services to a limited seven day plan that includes 20 voice call minutes and 20 SMS messages, but no data, MMS messages or international calls. The seven day plan will effectively enable Kogan Mobile customers to port their number to a new network.
Over the weekend, EFTM revealed that Kogan Mobile removed its 90 day and 365 day recharge offers which had been available since the network was launched in December 2012.
ispONE was one of the largest wholesale mobile providers in Australia. The company had been a customer of Telstra Wholesale for mobile products as well as a broadband and a "relatively small number of fixed line voice products."
