Kogan Mobile to end, Aldi Mobile to stay on

One of Telstra’s mobile connection wholesalers has gone into administration, and that means mobile services will be affected. In this instance, Aldi has found a way to stick around, but the news isn’t quite as good for Kogan’s mobile service.

Up until this week, Australian mobile providers Kogan and Aldi Mobile had both been using Telstra’s older 3G network, with Kogan entering the mobile service game late last year and Aldi joining earlier this year.

The services in question were sold to the two providers from IspOne, a customer of Telstra’s Wholesale division, and as of this week, that company isn’t going to be around for much longer.

“Telstra Wholesale has been advised that ispONE has appointed Ferrier Hodgson as a voluntary administrator and the administrator has cancelled the contract for the supply of Telstra Wholesale Pre-Paid Mobile products.”

The quote above comes from Telstra’s service status page, and goes on to mention that:

“Because Medion has entered into a direct supply agreement with Telstra Wholesale, Telstra is able to continue to supply Medion to support their ALDImobile customers.

“Given the Pre-Paid Mobile relationship with ispONE has ended, and in the absence of any direct contractual relationship with Kogan Mobile, Telstra will not be accepting new activations, number port-ins or processing credit recharges from ispONE on behalf of Kogan Mobile.”

That means Aldi subscribers will be fine, but Kogan Mobile customers should have less luck. In fact, the service apparently plans to end within the next 30 days, with Telstra migrating current Kogan customers to a “limited 7 day plan” which will provide 20 minutes of calls and 20 messages for that period of a week.

The seven day plan will be there for you to port your number to another service if you so choose, but after the week, the plan will only be useful for receiving calls and making emergency calls. Six months later, Telstra will cancel the plan altogether.

So where does this leave you?

Kogan has yet to officially make a statement on the matter – we asked – but if you recently purchased credit, or even bought one of Kogan’s yearly $299 plans, it might be time to call up the Aussie e-tailer to work out what your refund options are looking like.