Tesco Mobile, one of the many MVNOs operating in the UK market, has sparked a potential price war by announcing a ne wunlimited tariff. The new tariff will be a SIM only deal and will offer unlimited calls, unlimited texts and unlimited data for £30 per month. The only stipulation is that users are restricted [...]

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O2 Wireless, a division of Locus Telecommunications, will soon begin selling the Alcatel E206a. The E206a is one of the first phones from Alcatel to be sold from an MVNO in the U.S. It is a dual-band GSM bar-style phone with an internal antenna. It supports SMS, but lacks GPRS, EDGE, 3G, a camera, Bluetooth [...]

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Helio, an MVNO joint partnership between SK Telecom and Earthlink, announced that CEO Sky Dayton has moved out of the company’s top management spot and will now occupy the role as non-executive chairman of the board. Taking his place is current president and COO Wohnee Sull. According to Helio, Dayton has a history of relinquishing [...]

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Update: SK Telecom has decided to finally invest $70 million out of the $300 million total it had so far pledged to the Helio MVNO joint venture with Earthlink. Both SK Telecom and Earthlink pledged $100 million of additional funding for Helio back in June. SK Telecom pledged an additional $200 million in September. Until [...]

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Freedom Wireless and its parent company, TMT Capital, announced that Freedom has acquired the necessary licenses to start an MVNO and sell GSM-based cellular voice, data and messaging services in the U.S. The MVNO will target the prepaid market and is aiming for entry-level plans that start at $10 per month. Freedom did not state [...]

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Disney today announced it will shut down Disney Mobile at the end of this year. Early this year Disney also shuttered Mobile ESPN, its sport-centric MVNO. The company will provide service to subscribers through December 31, however they will announce a reimbursement and porting program by October 8. Walt Disney Internet Group is looking at [...]

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KDDI, the second largest carrier in Japan, will launch an MVNO in the US later this month. The carrier will offer service through Sprint’s CDMA network, with a focus on Japanese customers. Updated: The service will offer post-paid plans to Japanese speaking US residents. They began offering prepaid service to [...]

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Sprint today began offering new calling plans in the San Francisco Bay area designed to take on MVNOs like Helio and Amp’d. Sprint will offer two Unlimited Access plans. The first offers unlimited voice calls, messaging, and on-phone browsing for $120 per month. A second adds unlimited data access on a [...]

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Low-cost mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) TracFone is not happy with the recent Library Congress official approval of phone unlocking. TracFone is a pre-paid carrier and prices its locked handsets at a loss. Since those handsets are locked to TracFone the company makes up the loss on selling airtime. The new unlocking rules don’t affect [...]

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Boost loopt is a new location aware social network service from Boost Mobile and loopt. Using the phone’s built-in GPS, Boost loopt automatically updates your location for a private list of friends. Users can update their status and geo-tag locations with text and photos.
Competing carrier Helio recently launched a similar feature called Buddy Beacon. [...]

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Upstart mobile virtual network operator Helio has launched the Samsung Drift, it’s first new handset since the company’s launch six months ago. The Drift is Helio’s first handset from a manufacturer well known in the USA, the other two were by VK Mobile and Pantech. Helio noted that this is just the first of many [...]

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Virgin Mobile USA has started a soft launch for the UTStarcom Slice. The Slice moniker is Virgin Mobile’s work, UTStarcom called the handset “PCS-1400″. Like most handsets on Virgin Mobile, the Slice focuses on being affordable. But the slim handset still offers a decent feature set for the price.
Features of the UTStarcom Slice include:

Slim [...]

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Several high-profile mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) have launched over the past year, including now-defunct Mobile ESPN. While investors came up with lofty subscriber figures, the operators are discovering that it’s much harder than first thought to attract a large audience.
Amp’d Mobile has been funded with hundreds of millions of dollars and has partnerships [...]

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Fledgling mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Helio has announced a data card called the Hybrid. With the Hybrid, Helio becomes the first MVNO to offer a data card. The card itself is based off the Sierra AirCard 580. Despite the name, Helio’s Hybrid card only offers EV-DO Rev 0 connectivity. Bundled software allows a seamless [...]

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Xero Mobile has sold itself to newly minted corporation Advanced Mobile Communications. Xero is a pre-launch mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that wants to give away mobile service in exchange for showing users advertisements. MobileTracker has covered Xero several times in the past, especially its connection with now defunct Gizmondo. Most recently we noted the [...]

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