Disney Mobile goes to Britain

The Walt Disney Company is taking its new mobile virtual network operator offering over the Atlantic, announcing today it will launch a U.K. version of its family-focused wireless service over O2's GSM networks.

The media giant kicked off its new MVNO at CTIA Wireless earlier this month, surprising the industry with a service geared more toward parental controls over children's mobile usage than toward Disney's own content. Its Family Center portal allows parents to control when and where their children make calls and use other services, set limits on overall usage and even track their locations via GPS.

The U.S. service will launch this June over the Sprint network, and the U.K. service will follow later this year. Disney officials said that the service in both countries is intended to strike a balance between parents wanting their young children to stay connected and their concerns over giving them too much responsibility. Disney cited a report from Ipsos Mori Research that polled U.K. parents with children between 8 and 16 and found that two-thirds of them would welcome a service geared toward families. Disney also said that studies show that 64% of children aged 10-15 in the U.K. already have mobile phones.