A closing of a chapters of sorts. The last of the major high-end MVNOs is calling it a day and selling out to Virgin Mobile for $39M in equity, a far cry from the millions invested in the joint venture between Earthlink and SK Telecom. See Moconews.net for more coverage.

In our annual predictions last year, the response group predicted that Helio won’t last 2008.

6. Will Helio survive 2008?

Almost 70% respondents thought Helio won’t make it. Given the flameout of some of the prominent new-generation MVNOs, it is hard to see how Helio will see 2009. It will all come down to how persistent is SK Telecom. Earthlink doesn’t have the bank balance to keep funding this initiative.