{"id":11467,"date":"2012-05-04T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T05:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=11467"},"modified":"2012-05-07T11:51:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T09:51:26","slug":"appchat-mvno-agreement-close-holdsworth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/11467\/appchat-mvno-agreement-close-holdsworth\/","title":{"rendered":"AppChat MVNO agreement close: Holdsworth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile voice over IP (VoIP)<\/a> startup, AppChat<\/a> is on track to launch its first products later this year, and is \u2018very close\u2019 to signing a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with one of the mobile operators.<\/p>\n

Industry speculation suggests that AppChat will become Cell C\u2019s<\/a> second MVNO after Virgin Mobile<\/a>. Cell C CEO, Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> said in March that the company is \u201cabout to appoint a second MVNO\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Holdsworth would not confirm that he is in discussions with Cell C, explaining that legal reasons prevent him from revealing the name of the operator.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth did say that \u201cAlan Knott Craig is a giant of the mobile industry and if I were to be given the opportunity to work alongside the new Cell C CEO it would without doubt be the highlight of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cell C would also not confirm the discussions, saying that they \u201ccannot disclose any details at this stage, but an announcement will be made in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n

AppChat on track<\/strong><\/p>\n

AppChat is currently embroidered in a legal dispute with Reunert, which had instituted proceedings against John Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

Reunert is seeking to enforce contractual restraint of trade and confidentiality undertakings given by Holdsworth in favour of Reunert. This followed Reunert\u2019s acquisition of the ECN Telecommunications<\/a> business in June last year.<\/p>\n

However, Holdsworth is not concerned about the impact of this legal battle on AppChat\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balance of probabilities clearly favours AppChat and I am confident that we will win the case. Nashua ECN is a fixed-line operator and has no protectable interests in the mobile market,\u201d argues Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cNashua ECN currently does not have any mobile products and services in its portfolio; has no customers in the mobile market; has never generated any revenue from the sale of a mobile service and has never connected a single mobile voice call from a cell phone in its seven year history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holdsworth added that Nashua ECN only adopted mobile VoIP as a strategic initiative after the announcement of his future plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe application has been launched for an ulterior purpose, through a court process, and thus amounts to an abuse of the process. Reunert, a large, listed company, is simply conducting itself as the proverbial \u2018bullyboy\u2019, using ECN, a fixed-line operator, as a proxy for one of its other group companies, Nashua Mobile,\u201d Holdsworth said.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth said: “my restraint of trade expires at the end of August 2012”. It would appear that the outcome of the court case is therefore unlikely to influence the company\u2019s launch plans.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mobile voice disruption planned for SA market<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C to sign another virtual operator agreement<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness as usual\u201d at AppChat amid court battle<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Reunert trying to shut AppChat down: John Holdsworth<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AppChat CEO, John Holdsworth says that the company is on track to launch services later this year, and that it is close to signing a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1878,42,26,66,551,2433,555],"class_list":["post-11467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-appchat","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-john-holdsworth","tag-nashua-mobile","tag-nashua-ecn","tag-reunert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11467"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11471,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11467\/revisions\/11471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}