Telstra and Kogan Mobile have both released public statements in the past 24 hours addressing the 2013 demise of the Kogan branded MVNO, but with very different details.
Essentially, both say that each company was looking to maintain a partnership, but that the other was responsible for negotiations falling through.
Telstra fired first in a blog post on its Exchange blog by the executive director of its Wholesale business, Stuart Lee. In the post he explains that Telstra’s customer was aspen, who in turn sold services onto Kogan Mobile (and ALDI Mobile as well). When aspen went into voluntary administration, Telstra formed a direct commercial relationship with Aldi, but couldn’t reach a similar partnership with Kogan after negotiation.
“We were prepared to enter into direct arrangements with both Kogan and Medion on commercial terms,” writes Lee.
“The decision by Ferrier Hodgson, as ispONE’s administrator, to terminate Telstra’s Wholesale’s pre-paid mobile contract meant we had no choice but to progress with disconnecting Kogan’s services, although we did provide interim services at our own cost to Kogan end users so they had time to choose their next steps.”
Kogan has responded in a statement of its own, claiming that Telstra was already in the process of terminating its contract with ispONE, and leaving Kogan Mobile in the lurch as a result, before the company went into administration.
Afterwards, Telstra refused to offer services to Kogan Mobile saying, “Telstra had every opportunity not to progress with disconnecting Kogan’s services,” according to the MVNO’s version of events.
“Kogan Mobile [now] has a network ally [in Vodafone] that is really supportive, isn’t scared of competitive pricing, and has an interest in seeing Kogan Mobile succeed in the market.”
Finger-pointing aside, one inescapable fact is that 280,000 Kogan customers were left scrambling for service when agreement wasn’t reach.
Duel image via Shutterstock
Joseph Hanlon
Related Articles
