Top US mobile virtual operators: Tracfone, Virgin, Boost

MVNOs, such as Helio and Mobile ESPN, have not lived up to their marketing hype. Despite promising to shake up the market, they have only attracted miniscule customer numbers. In contrast, less glamorous MVNOs, Tracfone, Virgin, and Boost, aimed at the prepaid and youth market, have carved out a comfortable niche, which the trendy, high-tech newcomers can only enviously ogle. At the end of 2005, Tracfone, Virgin and Boost accounted for 65% of the US MVNO market.