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This announcement comes as kind of surprise, at least for Verizon. Sprint had been talking about it for a while — CEO Dan Hesse had mentioned the possibility in public — but I hadn’t seen anything about Verizon’s shift. Yes, both companies now plan to offer unlimited calling for a monthly flat rate. This puts a bit of pressure on regional prepaid providers MetroPCS and Cricket, as well as Sprint’s prepaid offering, Boost Unlimited. However, as you’ll see in a few paragraphs, the pricing isn’t really comparable at all.
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There’s an interesting article over at Trading Markets which discusses the implications of the open-access C block of the 700 MHz spectrum on the iPhone. It actually quotes Greg Sterling, who I had the pleasure of speaking to regarding mobile advertising. It’s something I certainly can’t do justice by summing up in this space. So I definitely suggest you go check out what Greg and others have to say about exclusivity and open-access. But for the time being, I’m going to add my own thoughts to this debate.
Read the rest of Could 700 MHz spectrum open the iPhone…

I love baseball. It’s that simple. I follow my team every day of the year. I’m up on most of the other teams too. From April through October, my girlfriend hates me because I end up watching some 250 baseball games. So when there’s a baseball-related cell phone story, you’d better believe I’m all over it. Verizon is the subject today, as they’ve made their EV-DO Rev. A available to all Spring Training sites, whether in Florida for the Grapefruit League or Arizona for the Cactus League.
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Though they’re not the first to pick it up, T-Mobile has announced that they’ll be featuring the Motorola ROKR as part of its handset lineup. It’s a neat little device, a candybar design with full music capabilities. This is backed by 2 gigabtyes of on-board memory, same as its rival, the Samsung Juke. I didn’t see word on microSD expansion, though. To be clear, this is the E8 model, quite different than the previous incarnation of the ROKR. It was displayed at CES back in January, and was a decent hit with the crowd there.
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A couple of years ago, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) were all the rage. I remember the first time one of my friends got a navigation system in his car. It was almost eerie to hear an automated voice rattle off directions on the fly. Gone were the days where I’d sit shotgun and misdirect the driver. Now we could just plug the destination address into the dashboard, and Ms. GPS would map our our route, track our progress, and tell us where to turn. In recent years, there has been a push to get GPS units into cell phones. And you know what? It’s a good thing, despite what dashboard GPS unit makers might tell you.
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What would you do if you were being charged roaming rates when calling from your own home? You’d probably get angry and call customer service, right? But what if that you had Sprint and their reputed abysmal customer service? Well, you’d have a completely different case on your hands. One woman in Charlotte, South Carolina decided to take a forceful route. She’s suing Sprint Nextel Corp. in U.S. District Court.
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WiMax has taken quite a hit recently. Once the symbol of a bright Internet future, development of the project slowed down when Sprint pulled out of its partnership with Clearwire. Yes, Clearwire will continue to develop it, probably with funding from other outside sources. Sprint will also continue their development, because, well, they need to get something out there that their rivals, Verizon and AT&T, don’t have. Chinese handset maker ZTE Corp. now says it’s talking with Sprint about collaborating on WiMax handsets.
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I’m trying to keep up with the important stuff going on at the Mobile World Congress. There are new phones being introduced by carrier after carrier, and it’s tough to separate out the good from the bad. And sometimes, the bad is remarkably so. Today, we’re checking in with Gary Krakow of TheStreet.com. He’s talking about the new Nokia N96, the successor to the ultra-popular N95, and the much-anticipated Garmin nuvifone.
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The Mobile World Congress always brings out a flurry of ideas for new phones. Some are good, some are bad, and some are remarkably bad. So we’ll lead with the good. Fujitsu has developed a phone which uses fingerprint technology to secure personal and corporate data on your phone. No, it’s not quite a retina scan, but it reads below the skin’s surface to a layer which contains the “true” fingerprint. So you won’t have to worry about those shrewd criminals who place copies of your fingerprints over theirs.
Read the rest of One great cell phone idea, one bad one…

Tons going on this week at the Mobile World Congress. Among the most buzz-generating attractions is Android, the platform being developed by Google for the Open Handset Alliance. Well, LG is the first one to give us a soft release date: Early 2009. Some people are going to be a bit disappointed by this. After all, there were reports of the platform becoming available by the middle of this year, but that simply hasn’t panned out. But, things are still moving along, and we should start seeing this OS soon enough.
Read the rest of Big day for LG: Android and Horizon Phone…