Disney will pull the plug on their MVNO operations by the end of the year.

This is what I read today on the Examiner web site.

Disney said that despite the fact that some of their services had a great success with parents they failed to get large retailers to sell their mobile phones and services.

One of the most interesting services they were offering was a mobile phone able to locate the child owning it, setting usage hours and limits. That was really a clever service and a great idea for parents.

After the ESPN branded cell phone service dismissed last year this is the second failure in Disney mobile operations.

Disney is a well recognized brand in the market and the services they were offering were really well designed and marketed.

Is this a bad news for MVNOs?

I think yes. If Disney failed in a vertical market that they seemed to own I wonder how other virtual operators with no brand awareness and no services other than voice will be successful.