Confusion as New UK Mobile Operator Ymobile Suddenly “Pauses” Service

Some customers of new UK mobile operator, Ymobile (Ycorp), which only launched one month ago while pledging to offer a “simpler, more streamlined and environmentally friendly” alternative to traditional mobile networks (here), have suddenly been told that their service will be “terminated” in January 2025.

The operator, which promoted itself as being the United Kingdom’s “first data-led, eSIM MVNO“, claimed to be powered by Three UK’s national 4G and 5G network via a virtual operator (MVNO) agreement and appeared to offer a simple range of 30-day data-only (mobile broadband) eSIM plans (e.g. £5 for 10GB and up to 100GB for £15).

In addition, the umbrella Ycorp group were also promoting themselves as being able to enable brands and businesses to easily build their own privately labelled Full or Lite data-driven eSIM MVNO. Suffice to say that the launch seemed to be reasonably polished, but something seems to have changed in the last 30 days or so.

The first sign that something might not be quite right came after a few of ISPreview’s visitors began noticing that their website had suddenly vanished, leaving only a large “Page not found” (404) error notice (pictured). Several of our readers who had signed up to one of their eSIM plans then received the following message, which states that the operator “have decided to temporarily pause Ymobile’s service” and terminate customer plans.

Ymobile Customer Email

Hello,

I am writing to personally thank you for being part of Ymobile’s journey during its initial phase. As one of our early adopters, your feedback and experience has been invaluable in helping us refine and improve our service.

As part of our ongoing commitment to delivering an outstanding mobile experience, we have decided to temporarily pause Ymobile’s service while we prepare for the next stage of its development. This decision follows the completion of our beta phase, and we now begin our process of developing a more robust and advanced version of the service for launch in the future.

What this means for you:

– You will still be able to use your mobile plan for the next 30 days, but your plan will be terminated on Monday 13th of January 2025.

– In accordance with our Terms & Conditions (attached to this email), Ymobile will refund you for any payments you’ve made in advance for services you are not able to use; i.e., if your plan auto-renews shortly before the termination date above, you will be automatically refunded for all remaining days in your 30-day plan that you aren’t able to use following the pause in our services.

– You also have the right to cancel your Ymobile plan at any time including prior to the suspension of our services. To do this please contact our Customer Service Team: hello@ymobile.co.uk

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact the team at hello@ymobile.co.uk

Thank you for being part of the Ymobile story. We’re excited about what’s next, watch this space!

Best regards,

Mike Greaves
Chief Executive Officer, Ycorp

Call us old-fashioned, but there’s a rather stark difference between how Ymobile express this as, on the one hand, being a temporary “pause“, and then almost immediately inform customers that their mobile plans “will be terminated on Monday 13th of January 2025,” while providing no indication of any future continuation of service. You don’t generally treat customers this way when things are going well. But at least they have given the right amount of notice and offered refunds, which is good.

The mention of this being a “beta phase” is also rather perplexing, particularly given that some of the emails we received came from those who appear to have signed up AFTER they announced their public launch. ISPreview has shot off an urgent comment request to hopefully gain some clarification on these events. The related UK company details for Ycorp certainly don’t currently appear to show any obvious issues.

UPDATE 9:42am

Ymobile has sent us an official statement, but it largely reiterates the aforementioned customer email.

A spokesperson for Ymobile told ISPreview:

“As part of our ongoing commitment to delivering an outstanding mobile experience, we have decided to temporarily pause Ymobile’s service while we prepare for the next stage of its development.

This decision follows the completion of our beta phase, and we now begin our process of developing a more robust and advanced version of Ymobile for launch in the near future.

All of our current users’ contract agreements have been fulfilled, and the service is now in the process of being paused.

We appreciate all our users’ trust and understanding as we take this step, which will enable us to offer them an even better service moving forward. We will keep all our users updated on our progress, and we look forward to starting this new chapter in our journey soon.”