This month I wanted to write about an exciting new development in the MVNO space, as well as some other newsworthy items happening in the wireless industry. Read on!

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Several wireless industry veterans announced their plans today to launch an MVNO for the largest, as yet unaddressed market for wireless phones – young infants. The MVNO, to be called Babble, will target the more than ten million children in the United States under the age of two. Wireless penetration in this segment is near zero today.

Babble has done a great deal of research to develop the appropriate set of service wireless features, devices, and content that babies have been crying out for. One of the unique aspects of the service plan is “Free Middle of the Nights”, where all incoming and outgoing calls will be free between 2am and 6am. “We realized that while babies are often up during that time, very few others are using the network during the early morning hours”, said Scooby-Doo, the new celebrity spokesperson for Babble. Another innovative service, called Family PTT, allows two or more Babble phones within a household to be used as baby monitors. Of all the PTT initiatives launched so far, industry analysts believes Family PTT has the best chance of successfully competing with Nextel’s Direct Connect service.

Babble executives also showed off a prototype phone they are developing with some of the leading Chinese toy makers. There are no keys on the phone, since infants don’t yet have the capability to dial numbers. Instead, the phone works exclusively by voice activation, which in tests proved to work remarkably well given the limited vocabularies of young children. According to Scooby-Doo, the voice activation feature will help keep costs down, at least for the first eighteen months or so, until their child’s vocabulary extends beyond “mamma” and “dadda”. Babble has also worked closely with Motorola to design one of the most rugged phones ever made. For example, it is completely drool-proof, can be dropped hundreds of times a day, and can even be thrown across a room. There are some unique devices and accessories designed for particular preferences and growth stages. Babble phones will come with several “skins”, such as the “Teething Phone”, which has a solid plastic outer layer that can be safely put in the mouth; and the “Teddy Phone” which sports a furry cover, so the baby’s first phone can be used as a comfort item – even be safely brought into the child’s crib. Babble has also partnered with leading stroller manufacturers to develop a line of stroller clips, Babble phone holders, and other accessories to ensure that the Babble phone travels wherever baby goes. And all Babble phones will come with Bluetooth capability, so baby’s PIM information can be easily synched with Leapfrog and other key devices in their young digital lives.

And for those infants who need to be constantly connected, Mobile Ecosystem has learned that RIM and Disney are collaborating to make a special version of the Blackberry device for Babble, called the PoohBerry™. Babble is beefing up its sales force to sell PoohBerries to the children of lawyers, bankers, and other senior executives.

But what excites Babble executives the most is the unique content that is being developed by key partners. “We realized that babies have an incredible amount of downtime”, said Scooby-Doo. “Imagine how the right type of content might stimulate babies while they are being changed, breastfed, or are just simply lying there. And at this early childhood stage we don’t have competition from PCs, iPods, TiVo, or other gadgets for these kids’ attention.” So at launch, Babble will boast a large library of mobile download content, to be marketed under the name, I Want it Now. Some of the lead I Want it Now applications available include:

At the press conference announcing the formation of Babble, Scooby-Doo faced tough questions from the media and analysts as to the viability of an infant-oriented cellular service. “We did a number of focus groups with babies”, said Scooby-Doo. “They cried a lot, they wanted their moms more than they wanted wireless service, but they didn’t say no either”. Babble executives were also challenged as to the safety concerns given how much RF babies might get exposed to. But they countered with reams of data, such as the number of times an infant’s bottle or toddler’s sippy-cup is warmed up in the microwave. As for the objection that children are being exposed to technology at such an early age, Babble spokesman Scooby-Doo replied that parents who are willing to spend on I Want It Now downloads will be incredibly relieved to have an alternative to Barney and TeleTubbies.