The new Amp'd model

Amp'd Mobile may have made its name as a mobile virtual network operator, but it's trying to carve out its future path as a media company. The U.S. provider has been expanding internationally as a content provider, signing deals with carriers worldwide to aggregate and promote its brand of hyper-fueled hip music, gaming and sports content on their decks — a trend Amp'd plans to pursue as its primary expansion strategy.

Amp'd is doing exactly the opposite of what other MVNOs are doing. Disney Mobile, Virgin Mobile and the now defunct Mobile ESPN leveraged their well-known brands to create MVNOs that had the advantage of name recognition. Amp'd, meanwhile, built an MVNO from scratch and is leveraging it to create a global content brand. Bill Stone, president of Amp'd Mobile, who recently took over the expansion initiatives, said the MVNO was never the ultimate goal of the company; it was a platform on which Amp'd built its unique content strategy.

“We started the MVNO to prove the Amp'd concept,” Stone said. “The MVNO has served us well, and we have no plans to give up that business model. It gives us platform to innovate.”

In October 2006, Amp'd announced a deal with KDDI in Japan in which it will bring its content deck Amp'd Live to its customers as a portal on the carrier's deck, essentially becoming a stand-alone content provider in the Japanese market. Stone was quick to point out Amp'd is not merely repurposing its U.S. content for Japan. Amp'd is opening up a Japanese studio where it will film its own video and multimedia just as it does in the U.S., as well as aggregate Japanese-specific entertainment content from Asian developers, he said.

Although the KDDI deal puts Amp'd Live on the carrier's deck, Amp'd doesn't get the control or exposure it does on its own MVNO in the U.S. That's why Amp'd is exploring hybrid MVNO relationships like the deal it struck with Telus in Canada last summer. Amp'd is providing the phones, content platform and customer experience to a new co-branded Telus/Amp'd service, mirroring very closely the service it provides in the U.S. Telus is an explicit partner in the deal, managing the customer's voice and data plans and, ultimately, the customer relationship.