DataPass was a US MVNO that sold service on T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. It launched in early 2018 with a $39 unlimited data plan on Sprint. About a year later, at the beginning of March 2019, it quietly shut down. Its founder blamed back-end problems and pricing changes from carrier partners.
DataPass is gone
DataPass quietly closed at the beginning of March 2019, about a year after launch. BestMVNO reported the shutdown on March 22, 2019. The company resold service on T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon and had a small number of subscribers. Its launch offer was a $39-a-month unlimited LTE data plan on Sprint. The sources do not give an exact service-off day.
If you had a DataPass line
No single successor carrier took DataPass customers. Founder Jordan Kennedy told BestMVNO that subscribers kept their phone numbers and moved to new carriers of their choice. If you ported out in March 2019, your number lives with that carrier today, or wherever you moved it since.
How DataPass ended
- Early 2018: DataPass launches with a $39-a-month unlimited LTE plan on Sprint.
- Early March 2019: DataPass quietly shuts down.
- March 22, 2019: BestMVNO reports the shutdown after speaking with founder Jordan Kennedy.
- March 25, 2019: NWIDA, a dealer association, publishes a notice that DataPass has ended service.
Why DataPass ended
Founder Jordan Kennedy said carrier partners and the MVNE, the wholesale middleman, had too many back-end problems, plus pricing and plan changes. Some subscribers lost service for no clear reason. Those problems were mostly out of DataPass’s control. Price pressure hurt too: Sprint undercut the $39 plan with its own $25 Unlimited Kickstart plan. Kennedy decided to shut the company down.
How to find who holds an old number now
- Check an old bill or payment record. It names the company that billed you last.
- Run the number through a carrier lookup tool. It shows the carrier that holds the number today.
- Call that carrier and ask for the account number and transfer PIN.
- Start the port from the new carrier. Never cancel the old line first.
Your right to keep a number
Number portability is federal law, not a carrier policy. The rule is the FCC’s: Portability: Keeping Your Phone Number When Changing Service Providers.
How we verified DataPass
BestCellular.com tracks active carriers and defunct ones. We keep both, because people still search for brands that no longer exist. Every fact on this page comes from the sources listed below, and we leave a detail out when no source states it. Where sources disagree, this page says so. If you can document a correction, tell us and we will check it against the sources.
Tracked and active are different counts on this site. DataPass counts in our tracked total, not in our active total, so it does not appear in tools built for live carriers.
Questions about DataPass
Is DataPass still available?
No. DataPass quietly closed at the beginning of March 2019, about a year after it launched. It no longer sells service, and the brand has not returned.
Which network did DataPass use?
DataPass sold service on three networks: T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Its $39 launch plan ran on Sprint. BestMVNO described it as a multi-carrier partner MVNO.
What happened to DataPass customers?
They kept their phone numbers and moved to new carriers. No single carrier took them over. DataPass had only a small number of subscribers when it closed in March 2019, according to its founder.
Who founded DataPass?
Jordan Kennedy founded DataPass. He spoke with BestMVNO in March 2019 and explained that back-end problems and pricing changes from carrier partners and the MVNE made the business too hard to run.
Sources
Checked October 13, 2026.
- BestMVNO: DataPass has quietly shut down: Early 2018 launch, networks, March 2019 shutdown, founder’s reasons (March 22, 2019)
- NWIDA: DataPass Ends Service: Confirms 2018 launch, three networks, shutdown and number transfers (March 25, 2019)
- Wikipedia: List of mobile virtual network operators in the United States: Lists DataPass on Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, ended March 2019
Best Cellular. “DataPass: What Happened,” BestCellular.com. https://bestcellular.com/datapass/
Free to reuse with credit. Licence, sources and the full dataset. All defunct carriers are listed on carriers that shut down.
Live carriers to look at instead
No carrier took over DataPass’s customers. These carriers publish their network and run today.