If you’re looking to try out Android and don’t want a Droid for some reason, Best Buy has a deal for you. $99 for the Samsung moment or HTC Hero. These are pretty compelling deals, and they’ll be running through December.

Can’t help but think that while the deal may be good for Sprint and Best Buy, it may not be the best news for the Palm Pixi. Why pay $99 when you can get two just-as-good phones with larger screens and GPS? If you really need WebOS, the Pre’s just $50 more.

There has been a rumor circulating that Sprint will begin offering unlimited conditional call forwarding (meaning forward when no answer or busy) on Nov. 8th.

Until now Sprint has charged 20 cents a minute for forwarding any kind of calls, which has made alternative Voice Mail systems such as Google Voice impractical.

In fact, according to an anonymous source, Google Voice is the very reason for this policy change: Sprint has decided to create some sort of working agreement with Google to offer their enhanced Voice Mail service (visual voice mail, messages sent as email attachments, transcribed messages so you can read them like a text message, etc) instead of the boring old call-to-listen voice mail system most of us have been stuck with.

I didn’t post this right away because I was skeptical at first. With all the policies Sprint has been tightening lately, adding a new service for free on every plan (not just their new “Everything Plans”) didn’t seem too likely. However, a recent update on the official Google Voice webpage has confirmed the following:

Starting mid-November 2009, Sprint is enabling free conditional call forwarding on its network, allowing you to use Google voicemail with your Sprint phone number. (Standard charges will continue to apply for immediate call forwarding.)

Sounds pretty legit to me.

The potential uses for this go far beyond Google Voice, however. In poor reception areas, or at home/work you can have your Sprint number forward to your landline or even a VOIP line when you don’t answer, and save yourself from using minutes. In fact, technically, if you’ve got a VOIP app on your smartphone, you can forward the call and then receive it using data instead of minutes… I actually experimented with this concept on T-Mobile a couple of years ago, and you can read more about that here.

How will you use YOUR free forwarding calls?

While the HTC Hero and Palm Pre have been shown to not work on SERO, this writer was able to log onto the SERO web site and select a Moment without any sort of flag. This is very different from what happens when you select a Pre or a Hero – when one does so, the site flags it and tells you one must change one’s plan.

I’ll be spending my lunch break tomorrow testing this theory at a local Sprint store, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

it would seem to make for an interesting corroboration of Mordy’s theory that Sprint is making exclusive OSes (WebOS, Android+SenseUI), and making them require one set of plans, while having “generic” OSes (Palm OS, BB, WinMo) work on any plan.

Oh and side note: Has anyone tried a Samsung Intrepid? For Sprint’s first WinMo 6.5 device, the internet has been stunningly sent.

UPDATE: Looks like the answer is a resounding “no”. A long conversation with a reliable source has shown that yes, you can order the Moment, but it won’t activate. In some ways, that’s even more annoying than just not being able to order the thing. Teases. -Morts 11/4

Sprint has just announced the release day of the second WebOS device, the Pixi.

With the Pixi at $99 and the Pre only $50 more, will they cannibalize each other’s sales? That’s without taking into account the HTC Hero or Samsung Moment, both in the same price range.

All I know is, I think I’m giving my Sero up in December…

Hot on the heels of the HTC Hero’s release buzz, the carrier’s second Android-powered handset has been revealed to be the Samsung Moment.

Could this be the rumored Samsung InstinctQ under a new name? Or is this the third planned device rocking ‘droid on Sprint? Only time will tell for sure…
Meanwhile, the HERO is available today through third party retailers (read: Best Buy), and can be ordered through tele-sales. Still hoping you can get the Hero on a legacy plan (Fair and Flex, SERO, etc)? Well, at least a couple of purchasers over tele-sales have been told they can keep their old plan in tact even with this one on the bill.
The question still remains, however, whether or not they will be allowed to activate said phone when it arrives.

There is strong evidence against it working, but we won’t completely give up hope until this weekend when it is officially rolled out and available in stores.
Anyone else on the edge of their seats for this?
Come on, Sprint… do the right thing.

InsideSprintNow has leaked the Getting Started and User guides for the HTC hero (as well as an Activation Walkthrough). haven’t read it yet but, neat leak.

Tonight was a busy night.

We managed to get a hands-one with three phones we’ve been interested in, the Motorola CLIQ, the Sprint Hero, and the Palm Pixi.

(more…)

In one of the strangest stories to hit the mobile space in quite some time, T-Mobile USA’s parent company, the mobile giant Deutsche Telekom is rumored to be in talks with Sprint/Nextel about an acquisition.

This sounds hardly likely for a multitude of reasons- first and foremost, the technology isn’t compatible with their current GSM networks. Sprint, being a CDMA carrier, uses completely different frequencies and protocols- the network could never integrate together into one, and would have to be operated as two independent providers. Sound familiar?
Yeah. Sprint did that when they bought Nextel. Nextel was built around yet another competing technology, called iDen, which was famous for its excellent push-to-talk service. When Sprint’s own attempt at a Push-to-talk service didn’t catch on (anyone remember ReadyLink?), the company made a bold move and just bought up their competitor Nextel.

Not only did the move baffle users everywhere, it apparently baffled themselves as well. What was Sprint supposed to do with Nextel? Consolidate into one network? Not possible!
How do you juggle two networks that have nothing to do with each other? The phones aren’t compatible, the towers and infrastructure are different… you’re basically left with one company trying to run two independent networks along with a totally separate lineup of phones.

Sure, Sprint/Nextel tried to make it work with their hybrid phones (superior voice & data of CDMA, instant walkie-talkie chirp of Nextel), but that unfortunately didn’t catch on as well as planned, and it didn’t help solve the infrastructure problem of maintaining towers for both.

In fact, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was recently interviewed by Charlie Rose, and asked if he thought the Nextel aquisition was a bad idea. His response? “In 20 / 20 hindsight, it was, yes… the premium that Sprint paid for Nextel was too much.”

There is a lesson to be learned here. Competing technologies don’t blend together well. So why on earth would one of the largest GSM providers in the world be interested in purchasing the very same US provider guilty of that very mistake?
What could they possibly do with it?
Imagine- T-mobile, together with Sprint, together with Nextel. Three totally different, totally incompatible technologies with different phones and different towers, trying to be maintained by one parent company.
No, this sounds like a hoax.

But isn’t it true that Sprint was planning on selling their Nextel division? Perhaps Deutsche Telekom is interested in just that?
Still rather unlikely. Even though iDen and GSM both use SIM cards, their similarities end there. They would still have the dual-network problem to tackle, although admittedly this is better than a triple-network to tackle. Still, why would D.T. want to take on Sprint’s headache, especially when they admit it wasn’t worth it?
Numbers.
It could very well be that D.T. wants a stronger US presence. T-mobile USA is currently in 4th place as far as subscribers for national carriers. Unlike Sprint, D.T. has very deep pockets due to its worldwide presence, and the sheer number of subscribers may be worth trying to maintain both networks, even if it is not profitable at first. Still, it sounds far fetched, and besides the rumor circulating is about Sprint/Nextel, not just Nextel.

So, no one will ever buy Sprint?
No, I’m not saying that. Sprint has been losing money according to its financial reports, however Deutsche Telekom seems like a poor suitor. Fellow CDMA carrier Verizon seems more like a viable option, especially seeing how they recently bought and are merging networks with CDMA carrier Alltel.

Still, despite financial reports, Sprint appears to keep on pushing ahead with new technology and exclusive handsets… and has no sign of slowing. It is my personal opinion that Sprint itself will be around for some time still.

Still, at the mere mention of this news, Sprint’s stock jumped 11%. While I find the whole thing very unlikely, it would seem that at the very least some investors have reason to believe. Or… like so many other rumors in the wireless industry, this could just dissipate and be forgotten a month from now. We shall see…

When discussing the pros and cons of various national cellular carriers, someone inevitably throws a Consumer Reports or J.D. Power Award article in my face.

I hate when they do that. Not because I necessarily disagree with the ratings, but because the way these ratings are reached is generally flawed. There are no actual tests being conducted by professionals to compare services one way or the other… these “ratings” and “awards” are achieved by taking polls- They are asking consumers what they think about their services.

Verizon, for example, is usually rated the highest for call quality. They are built on one of the oldest national cellular networks… it should be no surprise then, that they have more towers set up than anyone else, and have the longest standing reputation. That also means that they have the most customers who have never shopped around for another carrier and therefore are unable to compare them to anyone else. For many customers who have been with them since the beginning, why would you even consider another carrier?

Meanwhile, underdog carriers like T-mobile and Sprint are playing catch up with their customer base, and chances are that more of their current users didn’t start there. That means that they’ve most likely been with other providers, but found one reason or another to try a new one. These users tend to have a more unbiased and objective opinion… They may admit that, for example, there aren’t as many towers on their current provider, but the prices and/or customer service is what they stick around for. Verizon loyalists won’t admit to anything like that because they don’t have any data to compare it to.

Not to mention another rating inflater is the sheer number of subscribers: Remember, we’re asking users to share their own opinions, based on their own experiences. Most people will cite their current provider as best because they wouldn’t still be using them if they felt differently!
Now, ask yourself who has the MOST subscribers out there?
Then ask yourself, who has the least?
Then look at those polls and ratings and see if you notice a pattern…

So technically, a brand new cell provider could pop up overnight, be far better than any of the competition in every regard, but still be rated poorly according to these test results, because the vast majority of users won’t rate them properly.

Now, I’m not saying that the bottom-rated carriers are the best, however I am suggesting these rating systems be taken with a grain of salt. I would recommend asking someone who lives in your area and has tried various carriers before trusting one of these reports. Or, at the very least, read some online discussions from hardcore users who’ve been around (www.howardforums.com is a good place to start). By the way, if you look at those forums, you’ll find a large percentage of users who feel very strongly against top-rated providers like Verizon, and won’t hesitate to tell you why.

Over a year ago, Sprint released the new set of “Everything” service plans to go along with the release of the Samsung Instinct. The new plans allowed users to play with every feature their phone was capable of without incurring any additional fees (Sprint TV, GPS, picture messaging, sms, data, Blackberry service, the works). Charging only $99 for the Simply Everything all-included plan (which includes even unlimited minutes), this is much less than it would cost for the same features elsewhere.
The problem is, they didn’t give Instinct buyers any choice. If you want an Instinct, you MUST get an Everything plan. They won’t even allow the device to be activate on any other plan.
There hasn’t been any official explanation for the policy, but in some strange sort of way, this made some sense… The original Instinct was supposed to directly combat the original iPhone on AT&T, and the big selling point for Sprint was that it could do things the iPhone could not at the time (3G, Voice Control, turn-by-turn GPS, etc). Without paying for those features, however, the Instinct was just a touch screen phone that lost in style and UI to the iPhone. In order to get noticed, its possible Sprint wanted every Instinct user to be able to show off how much “better” their device and service was.

Fast forward to today- Palm’s new Pre, and another Instinct (S30) is now running on Sprint’s network, and all of them require the Everything Plan.
That’s right, unless you want to pay for all the trimmings on your new Palm Pre, you can’t have one. Even if you’ve been using a Treo as a PDA for the last decade or so on a regular basic 200 minute plan, you aren’t eligible to even pay full price for the new Palm phone!
Now, that doesn’t seem fair… Ok, so the Instinct was supposed to target possible iPhone buyers, but Palm already has a large loyal user base, many of whom have been on the same old plan for years. Maybe they don’t want GPS, unlimited text or even Data… they never had them before, why would you force them to pay for it? For their own good?

Since when is it a requirement that every feature should be enabled on a phone? Imagine if they required every RAZR to pay for GPS Telenav service, even if the user already owns an in-dash GPS for their car! This hardly seems logical.

I personally have seen many people who had Sprint for a long time, and after years of adding features to their grandfathered plans, finally have a plan that they are happy with and want to stick with. Some of these folks were very excited about the Palm Pre until it was announced they would have to give up their old plan that fit like a glove, and take on a new one that required features they don’t want or need. These people were turned away, and Sprint missed a potential boatload of renewed contracts.

The effect? Sprint reported a rather disturbing financial loss this quarter, citing that they lost many customers. I very strongly believe that Sprint could have kept a significant amount of subscribers if they had the option to resigned their current contract for a hot phone instead of leaving them out to wander elsewhere.

Even stranger still is that Sprint is not consistent with the policy… Currently, only the Instinct and Pre require Everything plans, while other smartphones such as the Diamond and Touch Pro running Windows Mobile (which came out after the Instinct) do not. Strange, since Windows Mobile rivals the other two platforms in features, and adds some more on top of it.

Meanwhile, current subscribers are wondering how Sprint will view the new Android handsets promised this quarter. Will they enforce the everything plan like the Instinct and Pre? Or will they leave it open like Windows Mobile, since Android is not exclusive to Sprint? Remember, users can buy a G1 or MyTouch on T-Mobile without having to add a special expensive plan, so if someone doesn’t want to pay for the services on Sprint but wants the phone, what would they do?

For their sake, I hope they don’t enforce the new plans.