blog Those who’ve been following the Kogan Mobile saga will be interested to know that the wholesale company at the heart of all the controversy, ispONE, has been sold. A media release issued by the company’s administrators, Ferrier Hodgson, tells us:
“Wholesale mobile phone and internet service provider ispONE has been sold. All 29 employees and more than 61,000 customers will be transferred to the new owner. There will be no job losses and the transition for customers is expected to be seamless.
The purchaser is CONEC2, a telecommunications and information technology company based in Melbourne. The sale price remains confidential. The sale includes all ispONE assets including the iBOSS platform and the customers of ONEseniors, One Mobile and One Telecom. The sale also includes CONEC2 taking over the provision of services to Medion under the Aldi Mobile brand.
ispONE was placed in voluntary administration last month (August 19). Administrator, Ferrier Hodgson partner Stewart McCallum, said the sale had generated a significant amount of interest. “We extended the expression of interest period to accommodate the large number of parties that came forward,” Mr McCallum said. “Many were credible buyers and the level of interest drove a competitive bidding process.”
Melbourne-based ispONE provides telecommunications services to wholesale and retail phone and internet providers throughout Australia. Its key service lines are wireless, post-paid mobile, fixed-line phone and internet services for business and residential customers. The majority of these services are rebranded through about 100 retail service providers.”
However, it appears that Kogan Mobile, one of ispONE’s largest customers, has not been able to negotiate any agreement for continued service, meaning that the company’s 120,000-odd customers are still going to be forced to migrate to another network. You can also read our Delimiter 2.0 piece on the Kogan Mobile tragedy (subscription required). A key paragraph from behind the paywall:
“What I find most telling about the whole situation is how quickly the house of cards which Telstra, ispONE and Kogan had constructed fell down this week, when a gust of air blew on it. It should be apparent that Kogan should have had contingency plans in place if ispONE fell over and its billing systems were no longer available to it. It should be apparent that Kogan should have had a line open to other wholesalers — Optus and Vodafone — so that Kogan’s mobile service to its 120,000 customers could continue if Telstra pulled the plug. The fact that such backup options have failed to materialise completely shows just how shaky the Kogan Mobile business model was, right from the start.
Image credit: Kogan