PTel, Including Its Giv Mobile Brand, To Shut Down Effective January 30

Here is some rather unpleasant news for certain mobile users -- PlatinumTel (PTel) has decided to end its mobile service operations effective on January 30th of this year. As a direct result of the wireless carrier shutting down, its mobile brand, Giv Mobile, will also cease offering wireless services by January 31st of this year. 

A master dealer of PTel had taken to HowardForums, an online community dedicated to news and information related to cellular technology and services, and delivered the news. PTel has been in the prepaid business for a decade and a half, but it appears that the company has finally decided to call it quits.

PTel has since sent the following message to its dealers:

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PTel To Discontinue Service on January 30

01/20/2016 10:55 AM

We regret to inform you that after 15 long years, PlatinumTel’s journey in wireless has come to an end and we will no longer offer service effective the end of January. Accordingly, activations have been disabled, and your ability to top-up will soon be stopped as well. Please begin to port your customers to new providers. PIN requirements for port-outs have been disabled.

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Existing customers of PTel may be disheartened to hear about this piece of news, and may be even shocked, given its rather sudden and irregular nature. The announcement was made, after all, not through the mobile virtual network operator’s (MVNO) official website or its Twitter and Facebook accounts, but through a public forum on the Internet. But those who feel to investigate further will discover that in PTel’s website, activations as well as phone and airtime purchases have already been disabled. Chat is nowhere to be found, also. 

PTel leases mobile phone and data service from major US wireless carrier T-Mobile. As an MVNO of the third biggest wireless carrier in the United States, PTel had the wherewithal to deliver fairly trouble free prepaid mobile service, while at the same time, offering decent enough customer service support to last for more than a decade.

But alas, the prepaid landscape has gone through some pretty drastic changes in the last few years. For one, the battlefield has gone even more competitive, and not only did PTel contend with other MVNOs offering similar services, the prepaid service provider also had to deal with the major wireless carriers themselves (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) who often fought for the attention of potential prepaid customers too, either directly or via their respective prepaid subsidiaries.