GNG News Guy
06-27-2008, 04:45 PM
http://i.dslr.net/urls/47/4547.gif (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Earthlink-Free-Of-Money-Pit-Helio-Now-What-95636)
Aside from their failed investment in municipal Wi-Fi (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/91693) and their unproductive investment in BPL (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/74137) (broadband over powerline technology), one of the biggest money sinks for the teetering Earthlink was Helio, an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) they jointly ran with Korea Telecom. Today it was announced that Virgin Media purchased Helio for the rock-bottom price of $39 million (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080625/bs_nm/virgin_sktelecom_dc).
While many are rightly focusing on the fact that this all but means the death of MVNOs (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080626/0155411526.shtml) (you surely recall the implosion of Amp'd (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/86226)), I remain morbidly fascinated in seeing what the stumbling corpse of Earthlink (who stopped funding Helio late last year) will do next. They lost $80 million on Muni-Fi last year, BPL is going nowhere (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/94078), they can't share access to next-generation broadband networks, and their dial-up customers continue to flee in droves.
All of these options were supposed to represent Earthlink's multi-pronged approach at countering the incumbent stranglehold on the terrestrial and wireless broadband markets, and all have failed spectacularly. So now what?
What's the latest on the Earthlink death watch pool? Put me down for October of 2008.
read comment(s) (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Earthlink-Free-Of-Money-Pit-Helio-Now-What-95636)
Aside from their failed investment in municipal Wi-Fi (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/91693) and their unproductive investment in BPL (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/74137) (broadband over powerline technology), one of the biggest money sinks for the teetering Earthlink was Helio, an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) they jointly ran with Korea Telecom. Today it was announced that Virgin Media purchased Helio for the rock-bottom price of $39 million (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080625/bs_nm/virgin_sktelecom_dc).
While many are rightly focusing on the fact that this all but means the death of MVNOs (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080626/0155411526.shtml) (you surely recall the implosion of Amp'd (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/86226)), I remain morbidly fascinated in seeing what the stumbling corpse of Earthlink (who stopped funding Helio late last year) will do next. They lost $80 million on Muni-Fi last year, BPL is going nowhere (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/94078), they can't share access to next-generation broadband networks, and their dial-up customers continue to flee in droves.
All of these options were supposed to represent Earthlink's multi-pronged approach at countering the incumbent stranglehold on the terrestrial and wireless broadband markets, and all have failed spectacularly. So now what?
What's the latest on the Earthlink death watch pool? Put me down for October of 2008.
read comment(s) (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Earthlink-Free-Of-Money-Pit-Helio-Now-What-95636)