By David M. Giegera and Sarah KuklerPublished May 11, 2018 11:01:24Samsung will shut down all its Altice mobile phone service by April 2021, the company said Tuesday in a statement.
The announcement comes after Altice suffered a string of problems that saw its app store shut down last year and the company was forced to shut the service down for months after the launch of its new line of smartphones.
The company will not be providing any services, including texting and calling, to customers, and it will not reimburse them for their losses, the statement said.
It said it has set up a new Altice support website.
Altice, based in Tokyo, is a service for Japanese smartphone owners that provides phone support, messaging and payment services.
It has also offered customers a mobile phone-free service called the Altice Lite service.
The statement also said Samsung would begin “immediate” efforts to repair Altice’s servers, which were damaged during a series of server failures last year.
The problems forced the closure of Altice for months, causing a massive amount of disruption to smartphone and mobile phone retail.