Sep 17
Ah, Zer01. What are we to make of you? A company of mysterious provenance, Zer01 Mobile exploded onto the scene in March claiming to offer unlimited voice-over-IP and 3G data plans for $70/month using a unique business model. They would sign interconnect agreements as if they were a wireless carrier, but they wouldn’t run any wireless network of their own; essentially, they’d always be roaming. Once Zer01 data hit AT&T and T-Mobile towers it would drop down to Zer01’s own Internet backbone.
Initially, they said they’d sell their service directly. Then they contracted with a distributor called Buzzirk Mobile, which was associated with a guy on probation for securities fraud and who was accused of running a pyramid scheme.
After a lot of negative press, Zer01 cut off that relationship and now they say they’re going to try to sell a white-label service through big-box retail stores, who would brand the mobile service under their own names.
Zer01 showed off a T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone running their custom software (shown at left) at the ShowStoppers event last night, which they said was connecting calls using their VOIP service, but frankly there was no way to tell; it connected calls, but it was impossible to say whether they were VOIP calls or just T-Mobile phone calls.
Post a Comment