Operators, which generate about 80 percent of their revenue from voice services, want to hinder a new downward price spiral. Revenue from termination fees makes up 15 percent of an operator's sales and profit, said Jacques de Greling, an analyst at Natixis, a Paris bank.
Continue reading "Termination fees makes up 15 percent of an operator's sales and profit" »
Under a new system set up by Sprint, law enforcement agencies have gotten GPS data from the company about its wireless customers 8 million times in about a year, raising a host of questions about consumer privacy, transparency, and oversight of how police obtain location data.
What this means -- and what many wireless customers no doubt do not realize -- is that with a few keystrokes, police can determine in real time the location of a cell phone user through automated systems set up by the phone companies.
And while a Sprint spokesman told us customers can shield themselves from surveillance by simply switching off the GPS function of their phones, one expert told TPM that the company and other carriers almost certainly have the power to remotely switch the function back on.
To be clear, you can think of there being two types of GPS (global positioning system). One is the handy software on your mobile device that tells you where you are and helps give driving directions. But there's also GPS capability in all cell phones sold today, required by a federal regulation so if you dial 911 from an unknown location, authorities can find you.
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Continue reading "Police Tapped Sprint Customer GPS Data 8 Million Times In A Year" »
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. & BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 3, 2009-- Sprint (NYSE:S) and HTC Corporation today announced the upcoming arrival of the much-anticipated HTC Hero™ from Sprint, the first wireless device offering the combination of the open and innovative Android platform with the high-speed connectivity of America's most dependable 3G network1 (EVDO Rev. A.) Offering a rich mobile Internet experience, the much-anticipated HTC Hero offers synchronization for built-in Google mobile services, including Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™, and YouTube™ as well as access to thousands of applications built on the Android platform.
Beginning on Oct. 11, customers will be able to purchase HTC Hero through all Sprint retail channels including Web (www.sprint.com), Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1) and our national retail partner Best Buy for $179.99 (excluding taxes) after a $50 instant savings and a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement. Pre-registration begins today at www.sprint.com/hero.
"The arrival of HTC Hero and the Android platform to Sprint's network is an important milestone for our customers and the U.S. wireless industry," said Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of product development for Sprint. "With the dependability and coverage of Sprint's 3G network, HTC Hero users will appreciate a much better experience than is possible now with any other Android phone operating in the United States. They will enjoy the robust potential to personalize their wireless experience as well as the best value in wireless with a Simply Everything plan from Sprint."
BERLIN -- Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom said Tuesday that they were planning to merge their struggling mobile operations in Britain, creating the largest mobile phone operator there.
The companies said the 50-50 venture, combining Britain's third- and fourth-largest operators, would have 28.4 million customers and a 37 percent market share, according to Gartner, leapfrogging the market leader, O2, with 27 percent, and Vodafone, with 25 percent. The companies said they expected to sign an agreement by the end of next month.
Merger Would Create U.K. Mobile Giant
By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN
Published: September 8, 2009
Britain's popultion is about 61 million.
We've all heard that driving and texting is dangerous, but Dr. Milteer (Dr. Regina M. Milteer, a pediatrician in Fairfax, Va., and member of the Academy of American Pediatrics council on communication and media) warned that pedestrian accidents have occurred because children were texting as they crossed the street and were not aware of their surroundings. And even though it may not be as hazardous to use cellphones while sitting at the dinner table or mingling with friends, it is just plain rude.
Continue reading "Texting while walking: dangerous at any age" »
Interesting smartphone product segmentation from Blackberry / RIM:
Bold: 3G and WiFi
Curve 8900: WiFI
Tour 9630: 3G
Atlas: WiFi + ?
Blackberry Tour 9630 comes to Sprint. 2009 July 20 according to SprintGurus ? 2009 July 12 ?
Specsheet/Userguide on Scribd.
Announced for Summer of 2009.
The Facebook phone ?
The BlackBerry Tour smartphone is a powerful mobility tool that operates on Sprint's nationwide 3G (EV-DO Rev. A) network domestically. It also roams on other high-speed wireless networks around the world for reliable voice and email communication without missing a beat.The BlackBerry Tour is a sophisticated smartphone that enables customers to be more productive and better equipped to manage both their busy personal and business lives. It is ideally suited for those who want to stay socially connected, and lets you share moments through pictures and videos via MMS and instant message on popular IM services or BlackBerry® Messenger. It also offers easy access to your favorite social networking sites like Flickr®, MySpace and Facebook®, and you get smooth integration between the BlackBerry Tour smartphone and your Facebook events and friends giving you a great view of what's happening both personally and professionally. This is the most powerful business smartphone in Sprint's line-up with instant access to emails, calendar, contacts, robust business applications and location-based services, leveraging the best performing networks both domestically and abroad.
Reviewed by Bonnie Cha (CNET): video and text.
Compare to BlackBerry 8703e from 2006.
Previously: Sprint Bold Niagara Tour 9630 BlackBerry introduced.
Blackberry Tour 9630 specs.
Latest and best from RIM:
Updated: BlackBerry Tour 9630 comes to Sprint.
Previously: Sprint Bold Niagara Tour 9630 BlackBerry.
3M™ Mobile Privacy Film
Protective skin for a cel phone screen.
3M™ Mobile Privacy Film is the newest addition to the 3M Front Surface Protection Film product line. This removable privacy film allows users to text, review email, check electronic bank statements, etc. without fear of having your "need to know" information become public information. Allows you the freedom to text and email anywhere without worry that others will see.
Features and Benefits:
Offers the same screen darkening "microlouver" privacy as other 3M privacy filters but now is a smaller size to fit and protect your mobile devices.
Helps maintain visual security of information.
Light matte finish helps reduce glare so your screen is easier to see.
Protects your device screen from the rigors of everyday use.
Easy to apply and removes cleanly leaving no residue.
Compare to Zagg InvisibleSHIELD / ShieldZone.
One of many ecstatic iPhone news stories, on the convenience of having recipies stored and immediately searchible. Some use cases such as seeing a sale on lamb when out shopping, and being able to search for alternative recipes, and amend the shopping list.
Not sure how to mount you pumpkin on a kabob ? Snap a picture and share it for instant feedback. The vision of Audrey, realised.
Crackberry is one of many sources of BlackBerry news.
Example Mike Lazaridis Speaks On RIM's Future.
Sprint is anything but fear, uncertainty and doubt about the Blackberry Bold.
Haven't we seen this movie before? Sprint leaks their rumor about an upcoming device, knowing full well that VZW will get it before they do. But all they can beat Verizon on is the leak.
Updated: 2009 June 17: BlackBerry Tour coming to Sprint.
2009 June 7 BlackBerry Niagara 9630 specs preview look good.
Virgin mobile's copywriters phone it in.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘Murray Hill’ and ‘Rule’ used in the
same sentence before,” he said. “The copywriters certainly
deserve some credit for this. It’s not that easy to go from
bashing Sutton Place to selling prepaid phone service in
less than 50 words.”
-- John Reardon.
blackberryforums, freshly designed for RIM users.
More on mobile and cel technology.
Campaign for quiet passengers and quiet electronics
(cel phone ring tones, iPod, walman headphones).
Music ban strikes a chord.
-- Headline that could have been used.
The Black Berry 8703c mates Colour and QWERTY and GPS
to the SprintPCS PowerVision cel phone and network.
Update 2009 July: Compare to BlackBerry 9630 Tour.
The 8703e measures 4.3 x 2.7 x 0.77 inches and weighs 4.7 ounces
(135 grams). It runs on 64 MB of flash memory, 16 or RAM and a
312 MHz XScale processor.
There's RIM's aforementioned signature 35-key QWERTY
thumb-keyboard, of course, plus a QVGA (320 x 240 pixel)
resolution display that supports over 65,000 colors. The
device incorporates intelligent light sensing technology
that automatically adjusts both the LCD and keyboard
lighting to provide an optimized view in outdoor, indoor
and dark environments.
High speed broadband EV-DO data (average download
speeds of 400-700kpbs and up to 2Mbps peak speeds)
in 216 major metropolitan areas as well as 486 airports.
Key features include:
* Sprint Mobile Broadband enabled on the Sprint Power Vision Network,
the nation's largest mobile broadband network
* Fast Web browsing, application performance and attachment viewing
* GPS-enabled to support location-based services
* BlackBerry "push" technology
* Phone-as-modem capability
* Bluetooth® wireless technology headset and car kit support
* High-resolution color LCD screen, automatically adjusts lighting for
indoor and outdoor viewing
* Complete, high-end phone features including speakerphone,
dedicated "send," "end" and "mute" keys, plus user-definable "convenience" keys
* Bluetooth® 2.0 to support wireless headsets and car kits
* 64MB of flash memory to store and run powerful enterprise, personal
productivity and game applications
* Integrated attachment viewing for popular file formats.
Palm Treo 700p reviewed.
At PC Mag:
The 700p's keys are squarer, making them a hair more
susceptible to mistyping. The Palm OS is getting old;
most notably, it doesn't support multitasking, which
is annoying when you're downloading e-mail and
want to do something else. But it's still tremendously
responsive and requires relatively few keypresses or
stylus taps to do what you want.
The Treo syncs easily with both Macs (with iSync or
Palm Desktop) and PCs (with Palm Desktop or Microsoft
Outlook), Mac users don't get the ultimate prize—the
ability to use the Treo as a USB modem on Sprint's EV-DO
network. With it hooked up to a PC using Sprint's Connection
Manager, I got excellent speeds of 900 to 1,100 Kbps.
That's awesome. But when I connected to a Mac using
Bluetooth, speeds slowed down to about 200 to 300 Kbps.
The problem is the Treo's Bluetooth 1.2 stack, which is just
too slow to handle the full speed of EV-DO. You won't get
that full speed in Palm's Blazer browser, either. Blazer's
not-so-fast rendering engine kept effective speeds on
bandwidth-test Web sites down to about 200 Kbps. But
the device as a whole feels very responsive, and it's fast
enough to play music or stream video.
Compare to RIM BlackBerry 8700g.
Infosync World:
Our fingertips were happy with the new keypad, although
we found reaching down for the Menu key to be annoyingly
awkward.
Palm Infocenter:
The Sprint-branded 700p in New York City, our surfing on the
revamped Blazer browser (which comes with improved caching
and Javascript support, among other changes) was impressively
fast, as were file downloads and over-the-air PIM synching.
Engadget's mobile covers Palm Treo, BlackBerry,
Sprint PCS Power Vision and EV-DO.
Treo (Handspring) 700p is out. With PalmOS.
Pague raves.
Palm Infocenter
Palm Addict
Engadget
Check the service contract: An internet without uploading or downloading.
Verizon's contract, for example, says its service cannot be used for uploading,
downloading or streaming of movies, music or games; it also prohibits peer-to-
peer file sharing and Internet phone calling, known also as VoIP.)
-- NYT.
The Treo 650 (nee Handspring) is a good phone.
See Treo Central or PalmOne.
MobileTracker Treo news and reviews.
