Talk:Helio (wireless carrier)

Charging for YouTube Access
Helio is trying charge $6 a month for access to the mobile verison of YouTube.

http://www.heliocity.net/2007/helio-charging-ocean-users-for-free-content/

July 3, 2007 - Helio has now announced that they are NOT going to charge for YouTube and MySpace. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/helios-3g-youtube-access-now-free-274554.php

This was discussed on www.HowardFourms.com there was a huge backlash because they claim Internet is Unlimited. Except for Youtube which isn't "Unlimited" Internet. CaribDigita 18:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

huge backlash? at the time of the posting above helio had about 40k users... Sgeine (talk) 13:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Some of the orginal text from the original wiki entry

 * On July 7, 2006, technology blog Engadget revealed that Helio had managed to secure only 100 subscriptions since its launch several months prior. Representatives from Helio were quick to respond that the number of subscribers was actually in the thousands. Even still, many industry insiders believe such a number to be remarkably low, and well below target numbers -- especially relative to the amount of money invested in Helio, and to its current overhead costs.

As of Feburary 07, 2007 Helio had 70,000 subscribers as opposed to the iphone's sales of 270,000 in the first 2 days. Even if 1/2 of the iphones weren't activated (which I seriously doubt) it trounced Helio's memberships in almost a year of doing business - again, only in 2 days. Their model of mainly selling out of established retail outlets (Game Stop, FYE, etc.) while not offering proper support to the "mom and pop" phone outlets that carry their service doesn't make sense. In NYC there was a deal where the radio station HOT 97 was going to let Helio promote the brand at several of the stations events and Helio declined. Capturing the Urban New York Market would have been a coup but they opted to go with the "hipster" market and do promotions at the McCarren park pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Helio's Wikipedia entry is a huge corporate farce and from their numbers to date you know they have no idea what they're doing.

-this isn't a forum, there's no place for your opinions, it doesn't matter if the iPhone is the sweetest thing ever, until they publish their own numbers or you can cite something worth citing (say an independent and respectable research firm), keep it to yourself, and one small FYI: SK telecom (the backer for this project) owns more than 50% of the south korean telecom market (a very competitive one, with very advanced devices) -> so i think they might have "some idea" what they're doing, read about it 198.203.177.177 (talk) 02:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly second the farce comment. to the anonymous responder, iphone's numbers have been widely published. care to come back and eat your other comments while you're at it? Helio's doing swimmingly, eh? SK Telecom's growth in the cell market in south korea is absolutely flat and has been for several years. Saying "SK's owns over 50% of the South Korean cell market" is some sort of testament to them doing awesome or to how competative that market is, is just absurd. it in fact says the absolute opposite. not only that but how big do you think the south korean market is? the population over there is under 50 million, not that large a percentage bigger then the state of california. Lastly, if you'd like to know one of the ACTUAL reasons SK's got almost 50% of the SK market its because they have exclusive use rights to the entire 800MHz spectrum.

Read about it.... Sgeine (talk) 13:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

CBC reports that Helio now has almost 200,000 customers.
Founder of cell-phone company Helio yields CEO job to president, becomes chairman - Published: Monday, January 28, 2008 | 6:03 PM ET Canadian Press: Peter Svensson, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CaribDigita (talk) 02:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Going from WikiAdvertisement to WikiReality for Helio
i've added copious internal documents and references. a helio employee[s] still appears to be attempting stamp out whistle blowing of willful customer endangering behaviour and making legal threats against me regarding their exposure.

204.119.143.114 <-- this is an IP used by Helio's westwood corporate office. the bulk of what's left of helio's employees are NATed behind this IP.

66.75.81.231 <-- Ron Marquez's IP address used in an edit attempting to cover up the his direct responsibility in the exposure of 170,000 people's sensitive personal information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgeine (talk • contribs) 05:22, July 18, 2008

Removal of "Milestones" section
We've had a complaint to WP:OTRS about the information being included in the article and it does appear to have some merit. While some of the information included in the section may have an appropriate place in the article, it is original research at best to take a variety of facts and bill them as the roadmap to their demise. Please try incorporating the information with reliable sources into the article elsewhere in a more factual and encyclopedic manner. Thanks. Shell   babelfish 09:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Virgin Mobile or delete?
It's been suggested that this article be deleted than that it be merged with virgin mobile. I'd like to second the suggestion that it be merged. Unfortunately, Shell Kinney repeatedly shuts down any dissent or discussion. Perhaps she'd like to explain why in the discussion section instead of her current dictatorial route. I think merging it with virgin mobile's is a good idea. helio had zero impact on the wireless market and this article has served, primarily, as a marketing front for the defunct company. What are the precious references worth keeping here that cannot be included in virgin mobile's? there's links to some phones that are unreferenced, already up for deletion, and just serve as marketing. 99% of these references are the generic wikipedia month/date/year links. everything else is just marketing. a link to helio's website, and helio's marketing "magazine" which is no longer maintained. Shell, why is this article so valuable? So far there's 2 who support the merge or delete suggestion and only you care to keep it. Since you're in the minority make a convincing case. You have to remember, wikipedia is governed by community consensus. You, so far, being the sole holder of your opinion flies in the face of that so why not make your case where it belong (in discussion) instead of making arbitrary edits/decisions. let the process work, no one else has objected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.213.229.6 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 19 October 2008


 * Couple of things here - you need to be aware that all revisions to articles are kept in its history here so what you've done on this article before is transparent. Given that history, its unsurprising that you're continuing to find ways to try to disrupt this article; this kind of advocacy isn't well appreciated on Wikipedia.  My attention was first drawn to this article through a formal complaint to Wikipedia's ticket system and have kept it on my watchlist since that time since the vandalism and disruption has continued.  This talk page also has a history page, so anyone joining this discussion will pretty quickly notice that your claim that I've "repeatedly shut down discussion" or that there's "2 who support the merge or delete" is patently false.


 * Your proposed deletion tag was removed because I disagreed with your stated reasons for deletion. This is how the proposed deletion system works; anyone can proposed a deletion and anyone can remove the proposal. I removed it because believe the article meets the standards of inclusion for companies (many now defunct companies have and deserve encyclopedia articles).  You may wish to read Notability (organizations and companies) for more information about the typical standards for company articles.  If you still believe that the article should be deleted, you can move on to using the WP:AFD process, though its unlikely you'll garner much support for deletion.


 * You also seem to be confusing "references" with what we call internal links - these links go to other Wikipedia pages and provide a means for readers to navigate to related topics. The links that are just dates actually aren't there to be used as a link, they are there because its a feature that allows logged in users to view the dates in their preferred format.  The actual references for the article are shown as footnotes in the text and appear as full citations in their own section towards the bottom of the article - these include articles from the Wall Street Journal and Business Week - hardly "marketing material".


 * The merge tag was also removed because of your previous history of disruption to this article. There was also no discussion on this page, nor did you attempt to start one until after the tag was removed.  Also, I believe the Virgin article already contains a brief mention of the relationship and links to this article which then contains full details on the company - this is fairly standard practice for articles on Wikipedia.  Could this article be improved? Sure, most articles on Wikipedia can.  Does that mean the proper way to handle it is getting rid of the article? Nope.


 * So, I guess the question here really is - would you be interested in learning to work at Wikipedia and contribute to the encylopedia, or are you only here to make a point about this article? If its the former, there are many who would be willing to help you learn the ropes.  If its the latter, you'll soon find that the community isn't very tolerant of that sort of behavior.  Shell    babelfish 02:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * i'm aware of the history page. i did not add the merge, someone else did (although i'm more in agreement with their suggestion of a merge than my suggestion for vaporization) maybe you need to have another look. i think perhaps the one concerned with making a point is you? any edit i've done has had copious notes and been totally transparent. are you connected with helio in some way that's made you the keeper of their page? regarding the links and references. is there a reason 3-4 links can't be included on virgin's page? is helio a separate entity and worthy entity of its own page? neither hold true. i read that policy thoroughly before suggesting the delete. but i'm not nominating for afd. but while we're on that topic you may want to take note of the following: "But a pattern of groundless opinion, proof by assertion, and ignoring content guidelines may become disruptive." which is exactly what you've done. what i've said is
 * 1. the company is not a separate entity
 * 2. the content this article contains can be easily placed in virgin's article and you've stated no reason why it can't
 * 3. your objections are personal in nature
 * 4. thus far the 'community' does not support your assertion


 * 76.213.229.6 my edit from los angeles att
 * 81.154.67.20 merge request from british telecom


 * i looked the merge request's IP up and its not even on the same contintent... you've made some allegations here that are unfounded and poorly researched. hardly what i'd expect from a administrator. i've read through your reasons for keeping it its weak at best. you only cited a litany of personal reasons but none that had any basis in policy. so we're back to where we started. your opinion is in the minority and you've again failed to make your case. my purpose in adding that suggestion for deletion was to solicit opinion and discussion. since you've removed that it hampers discussion since when one looks at the page (assuming anyone actually does) they will see that tag and look at the discussion regarding it and have their say. That's the stated point of that tag according to wikipedia documentation. So the real question is, is there a reason you want to shut that discussion down by removing any reference to an obvious debate off helio's main wikipedia page? like i said, it seems easier to just let the process take its course. have it out on this page while the clock ticks. before the times up the points are reviewed and a tally is taken and the choice be made at that point.


 * you may wish to read the notability requirements yourself. I'll paste them here for you so as to avoid any confusion as I've read it thoroughly.


 * ==Products and Services==
 * "Information on products and services should generally be included in the article on the company itself, unless the company article is so large that this would make the article unwieldy"


 * two of helio's phones are both mentioned in the article in great detail and have pages of their own. this is not consistent with stated wikipedia policy and should be removed. i'll post deletion on those pages for you to save you the trouble citing that policy specifically.


 * ==Primary Criteria==
 * A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject.


 * The "secondary sources" in the criterion include reliable published works in all forms, such as (for example) newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations[1] except for the following:


 * Press releases; autobiographies; advertising for the company, corporation, organization, or group; and other works where the company, corporation, organization, or group talks about itself—whether published by the company, corporation, organization, or group itself, or re-printed by other people.[2] Material that is self-published, or published at the direction of the subject of the article, would be a primary source and falls under different policies.


 * Works carrying merely trivial coverage; such as (for examples) newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or extended shopping hours, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories.


 * now lets compare that to what's actually in helio's article reference by reference since you clearly haven't
 * 1. i referenced this some months ago, merely says sky dayton was fired
 * 2. i referenced this, again merely states 3 other execs were fired
 * 3. second reference to #2
 * 4. broken link should be deleted
 * 5. helio's website should be removed
 * 6. this was a review of a phone. its no longer available to non-subscribers and should be removed
 * 7. link to helio's website. should be removed
 * 8. another link to helio's website. should be removed.
 * 9. another link to helio's website. wow a lot of important material here. note all these helio site links are broken...
 * 10. a link to some other company going bankrupt. relevance? should be deletd
 * 11. a link to information regarding helio reselling sprint evdo cards.
 * 12. a link to rumored merger talks should be removed according to wikipedia standards on poorly sourced material and references
 * 13. a link to a story regarding SK Telecom denying there is a pending sale. is this relevant? the sale happened they were obviously lying.
 * 14. another link regarding talks between virgin/sk telecom.


 * so in summary we have at least 8 links that should be deleted outright per wikipedia's clearly laid out standards. the remaining links can be contained in a small blurb on virgin's page. after helio stopped sponsoring their staff to puff this page up you can see its halved in size since we last had this conversation. further the entity that complained to you was helio staff who are now no longer employed by the company. this should alleviate your need to further do their bidding and approach this with more objectivity. maybe its time to get out of the way and let the process work. your suggested move to AfD is unwarranted as there is, thus far, no dispute aside from your own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.213.229.6 (talk • contribs) 10:05, October 19, 2008


 * Actually I was referring to the times you vandalized the article, edit warred with other users and generally made a nuisance of yourself on this article and others related to Helio; that has nothing to do with a merge proposal which was not discussed or even mentioned on talk by the person who put it here. You tried a proposed deletion, which was objected to per the standard procedure - if you'd like to discuss the deletion further, your only option is to take the discussion to WP:AFD to let the wider community decide.  It doesn't actually matter who removed the proposed deletion tag or why - please read the policy if you're unclear on how that works.


 * As for the rest of your comments, by picking and choosing pieces from one Wikipedia policy or by misrepresenting the actual sources, your points make sense. However, if we look at the main policies such as WP:Verifiability or the actual guidelines on Sources, your claims that the company website can't be used as a source falls apart rather quickly.  The same for links that are subscriber only or no longer live; linked references are there for convenience - there is no reason we can't simply remove the link - the reference doesn't suddenly become invalid. Again, even if better sources should be found, the solution is to find those and clean up the article - not delete it.  But again, you have the option of opening a deletion discussion at AFD at any time; if you have trouble understand how that should be done, I would be happy to help.  Shell    babelfish 14:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * do you read any of the policy you cite before you cite it? every time you come back with a response it points to a difference policy which i address and your argument argument again implodes.


 * This is from your new excuse, sourcing. further if you pay attention to the edit history of this article numerous helio sponsored links have been removed repeatedly citing this reasoning.


 * "Self-published sources may be used only in limited circumstances, with caution."


 * you totally ignored the merge suggestion.


 * further you made another baseless allegation that was flying pretty fast and loose with A. the definition and B. what actually occurred. here's wikipedia's definition of "Vandalism" to clue you in. "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles.


 * Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism." based on the definition i just pasted your comment was so far in left field it can only be construed as a personal attack and warrants an apology. you cannot make the argument that previous additions fall under that category since it was 100% accurate and sourced information and in no way compromised the "integrity" of wikipedia.


 * so anyway, we're going in circles here. you're posting links to policy, its falling on its face since it doesn't even concur with your extremely loose interpretation of it. what is your actual goal here? i've asked this repeatedly. I'm not seeing any net gain to wikipedia or anyone else from your resistance. is there a valid reason whatever content in here can't be included in virgin mobile's that is specifically and clearly laid out in wikipedia policy? i've gone point by point on everything you've said, every source and all content and you're just making unresearched blanket statements. every time a new one comes up you ignore the fact that you were incorrect and create a new one. like saying the merge suggestion was my own without actually checking...saying the delete proposal supported what you said, when in fact it didn't. try citing something with specificity that can be addressed instead of this global, nebulous, nonsense. incidentally the product pages i put up for removal have both been completely deleted. i guess i missed the one other page and will put that one up for removal as well. these pages continue to get whittled down in spite of your objections. most intuitive people would take that as hint that their opinion lacks popular (or any) support. a fact that appears lost on you. I think it's probably time you escalate this to someone who has a more objective opinion than your own.76.213.229.6 (talk) 02:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've tried repeatedly to help you with these issues and been subjected only to your constant incivility and abuse. Since there doesn't seem to be anything else I can do for you, please use the information I gave you about where to take things if you'd like to take them further.   Shell    babelfish 02:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * i'm sorry what would you call your opening statement with blatantly deceitful vandalism accusations? I responded with fact and policy, not the kind of personal remarks you've consistently leveled. Since you've again failed to raise any policy based objections i'll nominate this page for merging with virgin mobile. hopefully you'll allow the community to raise any objections this time instead of muzzling discussion and playing the martyr when you're called on it.76.213.229.6 (talk) 02:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The notoriety of Helio is substantial and significant, as it remains the only post-paid MVNO to survive and continue operations to this day (albeit through an acquisition). The company and its products were a significant chapter in the history of telecommunications, and a particularly interesting case study on the business of wireless service providers. It was, and remains, the most successful post-paid MVNO to have existed. Its example and memory should be preserved here and not subject to attack, either through deletion or merger with another article, by a single disgruntled individual.(Spamherepleasewiki (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC))
 * So notorious they signed a whopping 100k people. I want to point out some actual facts as you were too busy crafting personal remarks to present supportable data.

1. "as it remains the only post-paid MVNO to survive and continue operations to this day" This was untrue when you wrote it and is untrue today. TracPhone has over 11million subscribers. Virgin mobile had some 7million subs and has turned a profit. Helio has never turned a profit and contributed a whopping 1% to Virgin Mobile's total sub base? Now there's a heavyweight!

2. "The company and its products were a significant chapter in the history of telecommunications, and a particularly interesting case study on the business of wireless service providers." This is just editorializing and is not particularly useful in an encyclopedia. Do you have any reference material to support this claim? Which phone in particular sent such shockwaves through the cell phone industry on even 1 billionth the scale of the iPhone or the motorola microtac or startac? Your argument is pretty difficult to substantiate. Phones like that had _massive_ impacts on the cell phone industry. If anything helio was a significant study in how quickly can you burn half a billion dollars. the fact is, if you read any article today or when helio existed helio isn't looked at with the same level of awe by the industry or customers (for those who have even heard of them) that you hold for them. http://www.businessinsider.com/virgin-mobile-sprint-tracfone-2009-7 and that statement is referencable ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgeddis (talk • contribs) 07:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, why are you creating sock puppets to respond shell kinney? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgeddis (talk • contribs) 07:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081010030122/http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080516_291495.htm to http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080516_291495.htm

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