InPhonic to sell MVNO business

InPhonic said today is selling its prepaid MVNO Liberty Wireless to focus on its core mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE) business.

A little known company, Vaya, will purchase the brand and assets of Liberty Wireless, which includes Viva Liberty, InPhonic’s Hispanic-targeted MVN, for an unnamed price. What InPhonic is not selling, however, is the back-end system and software platform that powers Liberty Wireless and InPhonic’s third-party MVNO customers. The company has built a significant business in delivering procurement, activation, billing and customer care services to MVNOs and network carriers. An InPhonic spokesman said that Liberty now accounts for only 6% of the company’s total revenues, which at mid-year had reached $158.2 million.

InPhonic’s bread and butter has been its online sales and activation engine, which it uses to power the Web sites of several carriers as well as its own retail storefront Wirefly.com. InPhonic, however, has always used its Wirefly as sales channel for Liberty, offering customers Liberty service if they failed to meet credit requirements for the Tier 1 carriers. The sale of Liberty may be a calculated move by InPhonic to open up that channel to its other MVNO customers.