Brightspot Mobile Goes Dark, Service Shutting Down December 31st

It looks like the rumors are true, T-Mobile MVNO Brightspot Mobile, is shutting down on the last day of the year December 31st, 2015.

Prepaid Phone News is reporting that a text message has been sent out to current Brightspot Mobile customers informing them of the closure:

Brightspot and T-Mobile are partnering to bring you even better wireless plans. No need to take any action now as brightspot service will continue through the end of this year. Look for more info in the coming weeks on how you can easily transition to T-Mobile plans which offer more value, 4G LTE data and can save you money

I find the news rather disheartening, but the Target branded MVNO really wasn't able to gain much traction for a variety of reasons perhaps including poor advertising.  Remember that Brightspot Mobile commercial that aired while you were watching your favorite show?  Me either.  How about all those in store ads at Target for Brightspot?

I found Brightspot's $35 plan to be of great value, however I had never seen much interest through my site for that value plan.  The plan included 300 minutes of talk, unlimited text and data with the first 3 GB being at 4G HSPA+ speeds which is generally plenty fast for most on T-Mobile's network.  To top things off a $25 Target gift card was given as a thank you to customers after every 6 months of service.  That gift card essentially brought the price of the plan down to $30.83/month and if you look at my cheapest plans table there is only one other plan on the market that offers more 4G data for less.

From the looks of the text message it sounds like Target is going to try and encourage people to switch over to one of T-Mobile's prepaid plans.  It's also possible that Target will try and push current BrightSpot Mobile customers to switch over to GoSmart Mobile or Univision Mobile since the big box store is now going to carry those prepaid plans in store.

So what do you make of the brand shutting down?  Are you disappointed that you didn't hear of their value plan sooner?  Or do you find the service to be rather lacking compared to other providers?