Comments on: Amp’d Mobile Implodes: Burns $360 million, Declares Bankruptcy

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By: www.teletubis.info » Blog Archive » Sonopia Follows Amp’d Into The Deadpool

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:38:46 +0000

[...] (MVNOs) have been having one hell of a time over the past year. The biggest burnout among them was Amp’d Mobile, which lost $360M before realizing its customers couldn’t pay their [...]

By: Sonopia Follows Amp’d Into The Deadpool

Sonopia Follows Amp’d Into The Deadpool — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:38:25 +0000

[...] (MVNOs) have been having one hell of a time over the past year. The biggest burnout among them was Amp’d Mobile, which lost $360M before realizing its customers couldn’t pay their [...]

By: Inside My Mind » Finally done with Amp’d Mobile/Telus

Inside My Mind » Finally done with Amp’d Mobile/Telus — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 05:21:27 +0000

[...] I started going through my normal routine of blog reading when I came across this scary post at TechCrunch, it was information about Amp’d Mobile burning through all of their venture capital money (a [...]

By: Walt M

Walt M — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:49:14 +0000

The bottom line is value - are you generating any NEW value for customers. Ampd was too broad and it looked no different then the major operators (worse, it had no brand). There are models that do add value to what operators already do - any partner with them, rather then compete with them. Companies like Rave Wireless which serves colleges, Qualcomm’s new healthcare MVNO and possibly even Google’s yet-to-be-detailed phone service. Not to mention the iPhone — these approaches are adding NEW value to the customer. People will pay for value, they will not for substitutes.

By: Amp’d Melts Down, Helio Says They Are Doing Just Fine

Amp’d Melts Down, Helio Says They Are Doing Just Fine — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:06:14 +0000

[...] in December 2005. Helio entered the market just a few months later, in May 2006. Amp’d raised $360 million in capital, Helio raised $440 million from parent companies Earthlink and SK [...]

By: Al Ramirez

Al Ramirez — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:23:28 +0000

This kind of fallout is really big and bad news any way you slice it. The management team maybe got too much credit for the Boost Mobile deal’s success which was a similar concept in terms of the target market but in a time with lower expectations. Maybe the $300M+ was a reflection of too much investor confidence in the “Serial Entreprenuer Theory”. I suspect Sky Dalton’s Earthlink success may not be a clear signal that Helio has a secure bridge to success. Virgin the MVNO with the best chance of success is still no barn burner. The belief that MobileTV could drive the want for these MVNOs has also been a disappointment and I suspect the next fallout could be for companies like GOTV and MobiTV (only 2M customers with several Million in funding). This could serve Investors as a lesson learned that the trend of putting bigger bets on fewer deals may not always be the best strategy. Sad part is this may shrink fundings in the near term but, hopefully not. Its very disturbing that Telecom start ups have had a pretty bad track record for all the hope there is in the industry.

By: Seth Brundle

Seth Brundle — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:04:06 +0000

All I want to know is:
Who’s Gonna Train Me????

http://acceptable.tv/videos/16.....-Train-Me-

By: POOPS

POOPS — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:56:56 +0000

Does Anyone have any faith in this darn company? i think i can speak for everyone and say well jus thave to wait and see. lots of companies that filed chapter 11 managed to dig them selves out of the grave. I sure hope that ampd mobile see there mistakes, studies them very carefully and then hopefully someone other than Peter Adderton will take over and make this a hit.

By: take the booth at the mall FREE

take the booth at the mall FREE — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:56:03 +0000

Hey all i have a booth at the mall with what else but ampd mobile. if anyone thinks that this company has any potential be my guest. i can email you the cost of running the card at the mall out in Long Island New york. I have to say we have done in the past three months something like 200 new subs but i cant say that it was my selling skills although i would like to. i think that it was just the matter of everybody and there mother (literally) getting approved. I was approving kids that just graduated from high school. just turn eigtheen and getting approved. no credit needed. Anyway kind of a disapointment but i am a little sick of it. if anyone wants to take a chance with this one and thinks this company is on a come back be my guest because i am done!

EMAIL ME AT EMILTBOK21@AOL.COM

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:44:31 +0000

Ya - this company was doomed. Did anyone else see their horrible TV commercials? It was quite obvious that they were seriously reaching.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:52:52 +0000

I’ve been involved with MVNOs for some time now and all have a distinct cost disadvantage with the “Big 4″ carriers. Although they were spawned to reach markets the big guys could not, they still go head to head with carriers. Some have done a good marketing job but financial responsibility has never been a strong point.

By: Kikoman

Kikoman — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 05:21:35 +0000

All of these VCs with fancy degrees should call the folks at MobileTV.net for advice. They developed and launched their mobile services on a budget of less than $10K.

By: TechCrunch Japanese

TechCrunch Japanese — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 05:08:12 +0000

Amp’d Mobile崩壊―$360Mを使い切って倒産申請…

人気のモバイルバーチャルネットワーク事業社（MVNO）「Amp’d Mobile」が、米国デラウェア州の破産審査裁判所に、会社更生手続きを申請した。
同社は「VelvetPuffin」、「Loopt」、「Helio…..

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 03:04:36 +0000

Well I don’t think this is surprising at all. There’s plenty more room in the deadpool though.

By: extensions forklift

extensions forklift — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 02:32:03 +0000

did some yell “AMP’eeedddddd” when they made this decision?

- heh with all the commercials you would think / they were doing good -

By: otto

otto — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:44:14 +0000

next one: mystrands.com

By: Anthony C

Anthony C — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:25:49 +0000

LOL! Well, I knew this company wouldn’t make it far!

They made a name for them self QUICK and lost it EVEN FASTER!

By: Mica

Mica — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 21:26:06 +0000

Indian Jack - they may be billing for 20m a month in services but with over 60% of subs credit challenged, they are unlikely to have less than 7m in collections at any point in time. They have a prepaid caliber subscriber and a post paid service due to the limitations in the surepay solution provided by Verizon.

And I also take issue that they are an MVNO - they are a reseller with only image (marketing spend) as their differentiator. As a reseller, they will never have uniqueness in their offering other than packaged content and hip marketing. The tier 1 carriers will never let a reseller provide leading edge network control features to their subscribers and that is what has provoked the challenges all resellers are facing – noting more than what rolls of the assembly line at the tier 1.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 21:04:00 +0000

Are we seeing hte return of f’d company with the techCrunch deadpool??

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 20:49:24 +0000

I am willing to bet that very little diligence was done on this by the VCs. They all probably got caught up in the fancy MTV parties, hanging out with rappers that Amp’d worked with, etc etc.

I’m betting that there will be lawsuits coming and some of the VCs will have to answer some serious questions around oversight, audit committee activities etc. Failures like this dont happen overnight. It took many months of terrible accounting and controls to get to where they are.

I bet some VC careers will be over as a result of this one as well.

Will this deal become the poster child of of the current “boom”? Much like eToys or Pets.com were 6 years ago? I think some of the same investors are involved in this deal as some of those past failures too…..

By: listikal

listikal — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:42:07 +0000

Wow, to much competition in what is still an small market

By: Allen Stern

Allen Stern — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:36:42 +0000

From what I remember from discussing the position, they are/were a niche operation targeting urban users. Again this was about 18 mos ago.