Disney Pulls Plug On Cell Service

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The Walt Disney Co. said Thursday that it has decided to pull the plug on its branded cell phone service by the end of the year.


The Burbank-based entertainment company said customers liked the product, which allowed parents to determine the location of a child carrying a phone, but that it was having problems getting the phone into large retailers.


The company said it is halting sales immediately and will continue to service the handsets until the end of the year.


The service is provided by Sprint Nextel Corp. and offered Disney ring tones, video and other branded content along with a feature that displayed the location of a user’s handset on a map.


This marks the second failure for Disney in the cell phone space Disney’s subsidiary ESPN launched a branded cell phone service that was shuttered late last year after it proved unprofitable.


Disney did not offer estimates the cost of the shutdown — the discontinued ESPN service cost the company about $30 million.

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