Helio is dead. I'd love to rant about how Helio's death means that Americans don't want cutting-edge wireless services. They don't, but Helio was as much of a victim of its own confusion and lack of focus as of larger trends in the marketplace.

I'm still dreaming of what Helio was supposed to be. When I first heard about Helio in early 2006, it was the brainchild of Internet wunderkind Sky Dayton, founder of Earthlink. His dream was to bring the Internet mentality to phones. They'd be open, unlimited and powerful. They'd bring the hottest Asian phones from Japan and Korea to the USA. They'd have full Internet browsing, Wi-Fi integration, and open standards.

That dream died even before Helio launched. By April of 2006, Helio had become a locked-down little carrier focused on the high-end youth market. They launched a small number of attractive, but not particularly innovative Korean phones, and trumpted their connections to MySpace, YouTube, and how they carried a lot of "extreme sports" content.

Helio got a boost in mid-2007 with the launch of the brilliant Ocean, which was at the time the best messaging phone in the country. The Ocean tied together e-mail, IM, text messaging and the Web in ways that shamed the Sidekick and bravely battled Blackberries. But Helio never marketed the Ocean clearly, instead putting out weird TV commercials where a young woman brings home a Korean boyfriend with the tag line "don't call it a phone." They never quite explained what to call it.

But Helio couldn't figure out who was supposed to pay for their expensive, "all-inclusive" monthly plans. Their focus on social networking, games and BMX videos aimed them at the youth market, but as Amp'd found out to their dismay, the youth market doesn't really want to pay $100 a month on a long-term contract for a cell phone. Their locked-down attitude alienated techies, and their "don't call it a phone" marketing campaign confused non-techies as to exactly what Helio was.

Helio is the last of the 'specialty MVNOs' to fall, the small carriers who piggybacked on other networks to provide exclusive services. ESPN Mobile and Disney Mobile died first, showing that Americans don't want their mobile phone service tied to demographically-specialized content. People like family plans, so mobile-phone providers that require monthly contracts, but don't appeal to the whole family don't seem to survive. Amp'd died when it became clear that teenagers don't really go for expensive 18-month contracts, unless their parents are paying.

The remaining MVNOs primarily come in two flavors: either Spanish or cheap. Virgin Mobile, Net10, Tracfone and their ilk all play at the prepaid bottom of the market, among people who don't want monthly contracts. A few other MVNOs cater to the Hispanic market with Spanish-language content.

This leaves me really sad, because we're seeing Americans' wireless choices shrink day by day. Verizon's purchase of Alltel brings our five largest carriers down to four. Helio may have been small, weird and misguided, but at least it was a choice, and at least it had ideas. You don't see any new carriers cropping up - only the big ones getting bigger. When the only choice we have is between Verizon and AT&T - and yes, that day is coming! - you, too, will mourn.

Follow our past Helio coverage with these links:

The Helio Kickflip was one of the worst debuts of 2006. Meant to be a flagship phone, it was released literally half-baked.
The Helio Hero tried to sell itself largely on its connection to MySpace. Nowadays, most phones connect to MySpace.
The spectacular Helio Ocean was, and is, a great phone for social networking. But it came too late, and Helio never followed up on it.
They followed the Ocean with some rather boring (in retrospect) Samsung phones, such as the Fin flip phone.
Even before Helio launched, I mourned its lack of direction.
Helio's CEO, Sky Dayton, brought celebrity glamor to the carrier, including a personal connection to Tom Cruise.