ESPN Cellphone Has Great Sports Content But Many Trade-Offs

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

When you think of U.S. wireless phone carriers, the name ESPN hardly leaps to mind alongside Verizon, Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile. But this month, ESPN joined their ranks, sort of. It leapt into the cellphone business not merely with vastly increased sports content available from phones and a new phone customized for sports fans, but also with a whole new cellphone company.

The sports network isn't actually building cell towers or licensing frequencies from the government, as traditional carriers do. Instead, it is launching a "virtual" cellphone carrier called Mobile ESPN. It's leasing high-speed network capacity from Sprint and reselling that capacity as if it were a real carrier, complete with its own sports-oriented services, phones, pricing plans, billing and customer service.

I've been testing the new ESPN Mobile service and its first phone, called the Sanyo MVP. In general, I liked the elaborate package of sports news and information that lies at the heart of the new venture, which can only be accessed via ESPN phones and the ESPN service -- not through traditional carriers, even Sprint.

But I encountered some glitches and problems, including missing features. And to my amazement, I discovered the phone's Web browser goes only to sites approved by ESPN. I can't imagine anyone other than the most hard-core sports addict going through the hassle of switching phones and carriers to sign up with ESPN, especially since the new company's prices seem to be on the high side.

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Monty Solomon
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