The patent was filed on October 2006, so clearly Apple was toying with the idea while they were negotiating with carriers. Does this mean they will go the MVNO way anytime soon? Given the support and conditions that the different carriers through the world are providing, I doubt it. But it definitely means that they have it in mind, perhaps as plan B.

[USPTO via Unwired Review]

Yes, KDDI Mobile is coming to the US. And no, they won't be bringing any of their cool phones with them.

They will operate as a virtual operator using Sprint's CDMA network, but they will only cater to Japanese- speaking people over here. I don't know if this will significantly expand their existing 28.2-million user base, but with phone offerings like the bah Sanyo 2400 and the smleh LG 225, who cares? Nothing to see here folks, please drive thru. – Jesus Diaz

Japan's KDDI To Launch MVNO in the USA [Cellular News]

Once you sign up customers, Sonopia takes care of giving out phones, bills and providing customer service (the whole network sits on top of Verizon and Vodaphone). All you do is sit back and collect a portion of the monthly proceeds. The good part about this setup (other than you getting paid) is that you can customize plans to fit your customers. As of now, the setup is only good to get a handful of people to join up, not to create a business of your own.

Why let the real providers be the only ones to screw your family? – Jason Chen

Product Page [Sonopia via Downloadsquad]

The mobile service has special family oriented features that allows parents to keep track of their children.

• Family Monitor^TM: Assign allowances for phone calls, text messaging and picture messaging. Keep track of how much downloadable content your kids have purchased and limit their spending.
• Family Locator^TM: Know exactly where your kids are by using the Disney Mobile website combined with GPS in their phones.
• Family Alert^TM: Send a message to all your family's phones that appears on the phone's top screen so it's not missed.
• Call Control^TM: Lets parents schedule when kids can call what numbers.
• Disney Zone^TM: Get access to various Disney entertainment.
• Unlimited Mobile to Mobile family calls, night and weekends.
• Free long distance, caller ID, call waiting, 411 ($1.40 a call), and roaming ($.40 a minute).

Unfortunately there's only one phone available on the service, the Pantech DM-P100. Not the coolest looking phones for your kids to carry around, but they'll live. – Jason Chen

Disney Mobile [Disney Online]

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account, here's a mish-mash of quotes, facts, and most salient bits you might be interested in. (We might put up an MP3 later of our interview if there's any demand.)

After the jump, a bulleted list!

Quotes are from Mr. Dayton; All else is us.

• HOT (Helio on Top) is a feed reader application that even uses stock-standard RSS on the backend, but you can't add your own feeds. Silly!

• Why 'begging?' "We took that term from Korea ... It's just different."

• Have you aimed at Myspace from the beginning? "Yes."

• Why isn't your logo a sun? (This question stumped Mr. Dayton.) "How can you argue with that?" (He offered me a million dollars for stymying him, but I declined.)

• Why no PC connectivity? "If you want to connect a device to a laptop, get a [PCMCIA] card. You don't need a battery. It just goes in and it's with you all the time." No plans to ever offer use of devices as PC modem.

• Who's providing the backhaul? "These devices [Hero and Kickflip] work on Sprint ... We have deals with Sprint and Verizon."

• How about smartphones and/or QWERTY devices? "We have a really cool roadmap ... We've got many new devices in the works and many new services on those devices."

• You guys seem worn out. Have you been doing this all day? "I got up at four in the morning. I've got make up on from CNBC."

More Fun Facts

• Allowing open phones to be activated on the network: Could be done but not with the data, basically. Don't expect it.

• Helio hired the UI designers who did the Sidekick.

• Expect the Earthlink Wireless business to be rolled up into the Helio brand in the future.

• "I'm pretty sure Gizmodo was the first RSS feed I ever subscribed to." Too bad you can't get it on your Helio HOT!

Notables:

• 
  
• Myspace integration: Post pictures directly to Myspace, write and read mail and blogs, add new friends and view profiles.
• 
  
• Unlimited Data: Picture and text messaging, data transfer, 3G network access, wireless internet, video streaming, Myspace access.
• 
  

Complete features after the jump.

• Unlimited Nights & Weekends
• 3D Games: Buy it for $5.99, or try it for a week at $0.99.
• Gifting and Begging: Buy a game or some video content for someone and gift it directly to their phone. Beg your friends to buy something for you!
• Streaming and downloading video from: ABC, ABC News, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports, FUEL TV, IGN, MTV Networks' brands including COMEDY CENTRAL, IFILM, Logo, MTV, Spike TV and VH1, Ripe TV, RocketBoom, Speed, StupidVideos.com, and WireImage.com
• Good looking phones: Choose from the Hero or the Kickflip (Kickflip pictured)
• Helio On Top (H.O.T.): Kind of like programmable content screensavers which include Fox Sports, IGN, MTV News, MySpace, POPSUGAR, Surfline, The Onion, Yahoo! and more.

If Helio really makes all these parts work together seamlessly, it's going to be a hit with people of all ages, despite their youth oriented marketing and moderately high pricing. Helio service and phones are on sale now.

Homepage [Helio]

The first snazzy MVNO? Graffiti Wireless, who I know nothing about because, you know, I just took this picture, but who is currently in the front running as the most obnoxious exploitation of counter-culture so far. This is just hour one, though. I'm positive someone will take the crown from Graffiti before the day is done.

Virtually Yours

ESPN is synonymous with sports in America. And while the cable net has made some slight forays into the wireless space with a mobile version of its website and some games and applications, its Mobile ESPN service is looking to translate the SportsCenter experience onto a phone. Mobile ESPN is launching on a Sanyo handset that features a custom UI built around the data services that will deliver pretty much anything a sports junkie needs—live scores, news, video highlights and more.

But ESPN and other big brands don't want to take a backseat to mobile operators, and they certainly don't want to get into the business of buying spectrum and building out their own wireless networks. Their strengths are in content and marketing, not setting up and maintaining a cellular network. So they become a virtual operator—they buy airtime wholesale from a traditional carrier, then package it, market it and sell it however they want.

The idea of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) isn't anything new, with companies like Virgin Mobile or Tracfone having operated in the US for a few years. Typically MVNOs sell service with features and add-ons than you might get from your normal carriers, albeit at a lower price. But a new breed of MVNOs looks to change that, using incumbent carriers' new high-speed networks as the launching pad for an array of content and technology quite unlike anything previously available in the US.

ESPN's approach reflects that of many MVNOs: pick a niche and doggedly attack it. While this can be useful for general demographic groups, focusing on something like sports can be problematic, because while there are plenty of people that would love to have sports content on their phone, how many want just sports content and nothing else?

Another new-model MVNO launching soon is Amp'd, which is headed by the guy that started Nextel's youth-centric Boost brand. Amp'd is going after the 18- to 35-year-old market, leaning heavily on video content from partners like Comedy Central and Adult Swim, as well as viral-style videos and adult content. It's also developed a huge catalog of games as well as a music download service.

Amp'd, which plans to launch in November, is following an interesting strategy: look at what the traditional wireless operators are doing, then do the exact opposite. So things that people hate about their existing wireless carrier—devices with features removed, restrictive and expensive data plans, clunky user interfaces and so on—are gone. Statements like "We don't want to ask people to change the way they do things," reveal how diametrically opposed Amp'd and other MVNOs are to traditional carriers. "We don't have that telco mentality," says Amp'd chief marketing officer, Don McGuire. "We're an entertainment company."

Then there's SK-Earthlink, a joint venture between South Korea's leading wireless carrier, SK Telecom, and ISP upstart Earthlink. The basic idea here is to take SK's bleeding-edge technology from Korea and meld it with Earthlink's knowledge of the US market and its customer-service operations. SK-Earthlink, which should launch in the spring under a new brand name, is still remaining quiet about exactly what services it will have and handsets it will sell, but judging by the CDMA EV-DO handsets SK sells in Korea, it could make the gadget writer's often-used tagline—"you'll never see that here"—an endangered species. "We're going to offer access to technology that people may have been disappointed they couldn't get before," says SK-Earthlink's director of corporate communications, Julie Cordua. "We will deliver something this market has never seen before."

SK Earthlink, like the others, is also targeting a narrow niche: 18- to 30-year-olds that are willing to pay a premium for advanced handsets and data services. A traditional carrier simply couldn't take that narrow of a focus and remain a viable business. "It's hard for carriers to shift their brand," Cordua says. "Since we're starting from scratch, we can start something different."

The real potential impact of these latest MVNOs, though, isn't just their content and services as an end in themselves, but rather as disruptive forces to the wireless service business as a whole. While a lot can change between now and the time they launch, the MVNOs are saying all the right things in terms of the services and experiences they'll provide, reflecting the dissatisfaction many of us have with our wireless provider. Mobile ESPN, for example, put out a press release saying how great its customer service will be.

Most of these lessons aren't specific to the narrow target markets they've defined—while everybody might not be interested in baseball highlights videos, most people are interested in getting good service at a fair price, something traditional carriers still struggle to deliver. The content offering can always be reconfigured to address another niche, or even, perhaps, the mass market. But while it might be that flashy content that gets all the initial interest, it could be the way these companies treat their customers in delivering all these cool services that keeps them going, and causes the most problems for their physical-network rivals.

Carlo Longino is a writer and analyst that follows the mobile industry. He's co-editor of MobHappy, and also an analyst for Techdirt. He can be reached at carlo@mobhappy.com.

Read more Airtime. The column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.