Woe for the MVNO

An indepth article from the WSJ last week outlines some of the key problems faced by the new entrants in the wireless space. Lack of interest appear to be a significant stumbling block, and as TechDirt points out - it is not enough to come up with something new and different in the mobile space. The ill-fated "3" venture under Li Ka Shing - that historically has done quite well in the wireless space - is still hemorrhaging cash. 3 as you may recall was scheduled to revolutionize the mobile industry with streaming video, music, video-messaging, live TV and all the other amazing things that the techies dreamt up and the consumer forgot about right after he finished reading the press release.
Similarly the argument is that the current 3G MVNOs in the US space are in trouble as they grossly overestimated the consumers interest in such services - as well as his interest in parting with significant coin to use them. Admittedly none of the companies mentioned in the article have been in business for more than a year - and it can take a long time to build a successful telecom company - a veeery long time if you're running on someone elses money. Question is - if we can't learn from the Europeans .. who can we learn from? The Koreans? I wonder how Dayton's Helio is doing these days .. the MySpace deal hasn't been marketed to heavily since the predator effect was touted on every morning show in America.
But hey - if it was that easy - everybody would be doing it..