ESPN to offer national wireless phone service through Sprint

Disney’s first branded mobile service has been finalised, with an ESPN branded mobile service going live next year. ESPN Mobile will use Sprint’s network, and will include mobile content already offered by ESPN ushc as games and ringtones. There will also be ESPN branded mobile handsets, adding a third player to the battle to control the industry. It seems everyone wants their brand on the handset.
With the new multimedia capabilities of phones it makes sense for large content owners to launch their own branded service, which they can promote using offers of exclusive content. However, there’s still issues involved with running a telco even without managing the network, such as billing and support, so we’ll only see very large companies thinking the process is worthwhile. Although some telcos handle those things for companies which use their network, so maybe we will see smaller players entering the space.

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