Sprint extends 4G coverage to wholesale

Sprint’s 4G service is taking a turn for the wholesale — the company announced this week that it will be offering up some 4G-packing products to resellers. The list of available products includes the EVO Shift-esque HTC Detail and a data card from Sierra Wireless. More products are expected in the coming months. The model is not a new one for Sprint — the company already offers rebrandable 3G products for companies. At present, Sprint’s 4G coverage is available in 71 markets across the US.

 

More info in the press release below.

RIM rolls out SmartBuilder for small business owners

 

If you’re the owner of a small to medium sized business, you know how hard it can be to organize your employees and ensure everyone has the communication tools needed to do their job efficiently. RIM understands this problem, and wants to help you make some decisions that will ultimately result in increased productivity and growth in your company! To accomplish this goal, RIM has introduced SmartBuilder for BlackBerry.

“SmartBuilder will ask you 8 questions about your business and your goals, and will provide you with a recommendation on a possible mobile solution, including devices, accessories and apps! Let us know if you’d like us to connect with you for more details, or follow up with your usual wireless provider. SmartBuilder for BlackBerry helps reduce the research cycles around mobility, so you can focus on doing business.”

In addition to the online tool, RIM has also launched a ten-week SmartBuilder tour across the US. During this tour they’re stopping in ten different cities and hosting seminars for entrepreneurs and small business owners to discuss the BlackBerry solution and other available tools. Each seminar will have a session on Leveraging BlackBerry Solutions for Small Business as well as a Small Business Social Media guest speaker and a networking session. Not only do you get all this great help and advice, you also get to take a look at the pimped out tour vehicle above, and everyone that attends is entered to win a BlackBerry smartphone of their choice. Seminars are scheduled for Orlando, Las Vegas, Las Angeles, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Washington DC, Chicago, and Denver. You can see complete details and RSVP at the link below.

For more information and to RSVP for the RIM SmartBuilder Tour

Source: Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog/ CB

Stephanie and Lo Snap Pics With Their New BB’s,

Lo and Steph at the game in Miami. Stephanie just went back to her Tour.

Verizon: 38 cities, 60 airports to be blessed with LTE by end of this year

Today at CTIA, Verizon Wireless announced that its next generation, LTE, 4G network will cover 38 major U.S. cities and 60 additional airports by the end of 2010. Some of the initial cities getting LTE include: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The official press release, with a full list of cities an airports, is after the break.

Verizon Launches 4G LTE In 38 Major Metropolitan Areas by the End of the Year

MetroPCS to customers: Bring your own phone

Company will program phones from other carriers to its network

By Peter Svensson

updated 6/27/2008 5:56:13 PM ET

NEW YORK — MetroPCS Communications Inc. has become the largest U.S. wireless carrier to say it will let customers bring cell phones from other carriers, which it will then reprogram for use on its own network.

This week’s announcement by the Dallas-based regional carrier is one of a series of moves in the industry that amount to a gradual opening of the U.S. wireless market, giving consumers more choice over what phones to use on what networks.

Carriers generally sell phones that are locked to their own service. This protects their business model, which is based on subsidizing the cost of the phone by hundreds of dollars, then making that money back on monthly service fees.

MetroPCS’s move threatens these traditional rules. It allows customers with certain models of phones from Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Wireless, Alltel Corp. and a few other carriers to bring their phones to MetroPCS stores, where they will be reprogrammed.