Amp'd Mobile is adding to its growing handset portfolio. The MVNO will begin selling Motorola's Q on April 1 for $199 and says the handset will be targeted at its growing base of subscribers that want mobile entertainment and social networking. Although it isn't highlighted in the company's press release on the device, RCR News reports that Amp'd will be outfitting the Q with Sling Media's and Orb Networks' placeshifting software pre-installed.
Place-shifting software is a controversial move for the MVNO. Carriers have tended to shy away from this model because it encourages subscribers to access their home cable TV and digital music content instead of buying the carrier's wireless content and thus avoiding additional charges. Amp'd President Bill Stone, however, believes that it's better to market and control place-shifting services rather than not make them available to customers.
Amp'd may be the first MVNO or operator in the U.S. to embrace place-shifting but it has gained some traction in the U.K. Earlier this month, Hutchison Whampoa's U.K. carrier 3 launched a flat-rate wireless data package that includes services from Skype, eBay, Yahoo, Google, Orb, Sling Media, Nokia, Microsoft and Sony Ericsson.
For more on this:
- see this RCR story