MVNO deathroll - Voce goes belly-up?
By Will Park on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 pm PST In Rumors, Services
We’re not sure if we should chalk up Voce as just another MVNO gone belly-up or an incredibly unreliable network operator. You see, the luxury MVNO, leasing AT&T’s spectrum, has apparently ceased all operations on the start of the new month.
Voce customers are reporting that they woke up Feb. 1 to find that their handsets wouldn’t make/accept phone calls. The customer service lines are dead, as are the sales lines. Some customers are also reporting that they’ve been billed twice on their last statement.
As much as we love MVNOs, we’d love to be able to say that Voce merely experienced some sort of massive network problems and that they’re still in the game. Unfortunately, our gut-feeling is that Voce simply closed up shop and left their customers hanging high and dry.
If Voce is truly dead, they are probably the most unethical network operator to ever go out of business. Closing down a network with no advance notice to customers is not only wrong, but it’s just bad business - then again, they probably don’t care how bad their business does pas this point.
[Via: Engadget Mobile]
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:26 pm
My boss and I are dealing with this right now. NOTHING but problems since day one. With billing, with reception, with the phones, with the network. I’ve had to call VOCE every single month. I called three days ago and no one answered then, or since. I’m banking on them being out of business.
My main concern now is getting my boss’s phone number from them to port over to the another provider AND getting money refunded for the HORRIBLE service and lack of warning.
Any advice is welcome.
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:34 am
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 am
Confirmations of my suspicions are coming out today!
I was a Voce customer for about 6 months. I blogged about the day’s experience @ http://www.qlvr.com/index.php/2008/02/01/voce-a-not-so-qlvr-service/
Needless to say, I’m an AT&T customer now. I stopped by a store in Manhattan and now have one of their SIMs in my e61i. They WERE able to port my number over since they had Voce listed as a t-Mobile authorized reseller. That was the last bit of irony considering Voce bought minutes from both AT&T and t-Mobile…
Looking back, I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall when they kept lowering prices. This indicated that they were trying to acquire more customers since that had not done a good job of selling their value proposition. Personally, for me, the value was having two networks available more so than their “ok” virtual concierge service.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
[...] this a sign of things to come? Following on luxury MVNO Voce’s abrupt (and unethical) bankruptcy, Helio has just lowered the price of their unlimited rate plans. The Helio unlimited plan offers [...]
February 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
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February 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
[...] its doors, leaving its customer literally in the wireless-dark. Voce, the Beverly Hills-based MVNO has gone belly-up, but what happened [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[...] its doors, leaving its customer literally in the wireless-dark. Voce, the Beverly Hills-based MVNO has gone belly-up, but what happened [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
[...] How does the Chief Operating Officer have no idea that his company's network is going to go off-air? We have no idea, but Kosuge's obliviousness may be part of the reason that Voce is out for the count. [...]