Text Message Giant Amp'd Mobile Suspends Operations

Amp'd Mobile recently revealed to their customers that they will be suspending U.S. operations on Tuesday. Last week Amp'd mobile was given permission by the courts to sell the remaining assets at auctions and to private buyers. This is not a surprise to most analysts as Amp'd filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 1.

Amp'd first filed for bankruptcy, according to court documents, nearly 80,000 of its 175,000 subscribers were considered "non-paying customers". Amp'd was also costing Verizon Wireless nearly $370,000 per day for tower usage that Amp'd hadn't paid for. Verizon Wireless had threatened to cut off service to Amp'd Mobile if the debt was not paid off, as a result Amp'd Mobile filed a lawsuit against Verizon in attempt to bar them from cutting off Amp'd service. Finally an agreement was reaches on June 22, which allowed Amp'd to pay off Verizon with cash collateral.

On June 25, U.S. Bankruptcy Court heard the case and it was approved. At the time Amp'd had not officially announced they were going to suspend operations, but they had shown an interest in selling some, or all remaining Amp'd assets. On July 22 Amp'd sent a text message to all of its current users, stating that on July 24 at 12:01 AM all Amp'd services would be suspended.

Amp'd did put a small "Customer Questions and Answers" page on their homepage in order to assist current Amp'd users. Amp'd is careful to state that Amp'd is not going out of business but is rather "potentially suspending US operations". Customers will have access to Amp'd customer service through July 23 to help with issues such as payment, and phone number porting. As for the Pre-Paid customers of Amp'd mobile, pre-paid minutes "will not be honored by your new carrier". In other words, pre-paid minutes are lost and cannot be used anywhere else. Surprisingly Amp'd is allowing pre-paid customers to port their phone numbers, but only if they are transferring to another pre-paid carrier.

Some customers might not be happy about Amp'd "suspending operations", others might be unhappy about being informed by text message, but the worst part is the short notice customers were given. Customers were given 2 days to contact Amp'd customer service, work out any payments left, and transfer their phone number to another service. Currently Amp'd is "currently in discussions with several parties" in relation to being bought by another carrier, so it wont be a big surprise to the public if Amp'd is purchased by another, larger Wireless carrier in the coming week.