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Wireless Utopia

The journey towards a free wireless world.

HELIO Rises

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

With Social Networking becoming a hot internet commodity, it was only a matter of time till someone extended it to mobile phones. HELIO is a MVNO startup which is offering a customized MySpace client with the package. It has just been launched and both Gizmodo and Engadet have covered it. Its will be watched closely. Given the poularity of MySpace amongst the youth, it remains to be seen whether the user base can be cashed in upon.

HELIO has leased out spectrum and equipment from Verizon and Sprint-Nextel uses their EVDO Rev 0 network. The target user base is the youth between 18 and 32. Therefore its also offering Wireless Multiplayer gaming on the handsets. Nokia had earlier tried it with N-Gage which is considered as a disaster somewhat. This would be second EVDO MVNO launch in the US after Amp'd.

Much depends upon the success of HELIO. The business model of MVNO's has received a lot of criticism. What HELIO is betting upon is a combination of superior handsets and MySpace client. Social Networking is one of the candidates of the killer app of 3G. HELIO is going to put that to test.

Update: MoCoNews has detailed coverage of it. The "begging" part does remind me of my college days!

Tags: HELIO MVNO MySpace Mobile Phones Gaming EVDO Amp'd
posted by Rajiv, 1:40 AM

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