One of the oldest MVNOs in the U.S. reportedly drops T-Mobile for AT&T
Last month Lyca Mobile settled its court battle with T-Mobile but it is leading to a big change for Lyca's customers. The legal fight dates back to 2022 when T-Mobile sued Lyca Mobile. T-Mobile says that it accidentally undercharged Lyca Mobile in 2021 when some of Lyca's subscribers were not captured in T-Mobile's billing records.
As a result, T-Mobile claimed that it undercharged Lyca Mobile. The court filing says, "Lycamobile could have and should have learned, and upon information and belief did know, that the invoices were underreporting data usage by Lycamobile subscribers." This went on for over a year, according to T-Mobile; by August 2022, all of Lyca Mobile's subscribers were accounted for in T-Mobile's billing records and invoices to Lyca Mobile reflected the actual amount of data consumed by its subscribers.
Lyca Mobile refused to pay the higher invoice amounts allowing T-Mobile to request a higher deposit. Lyca Mobile failed to pay invoices for September, October, November, and December 2022. The whole mess ended up in court with Lyca Mobile claiming that T-Mobile wouldn't honor the terms of their MVNO agreement. In a filing made to the FCC, Lyca Mobile accused T-Mobile of withholding important technology from its U.S. unit and it urged the FCC to block T-Mobile's $1.35 billion purchase of Mint Mobile (which eventually did close).
Lyca Mobile subscribers might need to buy a new phone for the MVNO's transition to AT&T from T-Mobile. | Image credit-Lyca Mobile
Last month, both sides settled the legal action and told the FCC, "On September 10, 2024, T-Mobile and Lycamobile settled all claims associated with that litigation." Lyca Mobile withdrew its complaint. But there is a twist in the story. Just days before the settlement was announced, the National Wireless Independent Dealer Association (NWIDA) wrote that Lyca Mobile had extended its deal with T-Mobile for just one more year and during that time, it would work to transition its customers off of T-Mobile's network and on to AT&T's network.
This might be a hard task to accomplish since many of the MVNO's customers will have to obtain new phones that work with AT&T's network. At least Lyca Mobile and its customers will have about a year to figure out what to do. The company has approximately 542,000 customers in the U.S. and is one of the oldest MVNOs in the country.
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