Crave

Last week, Sprint's Vice President of Strategy Russ McGuire admitted that carriers might be an impediment to growth and innovation in the cell phone industry. Speaking at the MobileBeat conference in San Francisco, McGuire said that carriers need to "let go" and allow the industry to move at a natural pace.

"You don't want to move at carrier speed," he said. "You want to move at Valley speed."

Russ McGuire.

(Credit: MobileBeat)

But McGuire didn't stop there. He also went on to discuss one of the more hot-button issues in the industry today. Technologies like the iPhone and the Google Android OS are challenging the long-held concept of the carrier-driven "walled garden" and changing the very role carriers play in the industry.

"Will carriers become pipes or will they continue to be media companies?" he said. "They're realizing it's not the worst end game if they are disintermediated of their desire to become giant media companies and instead become the best wireless backbone."

McGuires's comments are indeed surprising given the way the U.S. cell phone industry has operated for so long, and he acknowledged that, saying change would be fundamental. I asked Sprint for further commens on McGuire's talk, but a spokesperson declined.

Like many of my colleagues, I've long advocated for a more open approach to wireless development in this country. Breaking down the walled garden to allow for more third-party applications. I believe customer customization will benefit the end user. And I don't think that's it's the end of world if carriers become conduits for information rather than controlling the cell phone experience from beginning to end. McGuire's comments give me hope that carriers are beginning to agree.

With prepaid carriers enjoying good times in this recession, Sprint Nextel subsidiary Boost Mobile is preparing to reap the benefits. Matt Carter, Boost's president, told Reuters that his company will open 50 new retail stores by the end of the year.

The new outlets, which will open around the country in cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, will only sell Boost phones and services. Currently, Boost operates just three stores in Miami, Los Angeles, and Houston. Boost products are available at some Sprint retail locations, but they're typically regulated to a corner of the store.

Boost has been aggressively expanding its offerings in the past few months. In January it announced a $50-per-month unlimited plan for calls, texts, and data.

Last month, I celebrated the fact that Sprint was killing its bizarre ad campaign with CEO Dan Hesse. Reader response to the blog was divided--some readers said they liked the ads, while others shared my joy. A Sprint spokesperson even chimed in to say that the ads "ranked among the best wireless ads in recent months for memorability."

Sprint also was good enough to send me its press release for two new TV, billboard, and Internet ad campaigns. The first, which (surprise!) features the Palm Pre (at least someone gets to touch it), revolves around Sprint's Now Network, aka the carrier's wireless broadband network. The central message appears to be the breadth of Sprint's network and the services, information and communication available on it. The campaign launched April 6.

You can see the video on YouTube and Sprint has launched a "Sprint Now widget" that gives you a taste of the campaign. On the widget is a treasure trove of random facts that will fascinate the trivia buff.

You'll find everything from Sprint-related factoids, such as how many text messages are being sent to the carrier's network, to the very non-Sprint-related, such as how many babies are being born right now. You'll also find completely useless information, such as how many people are stuck in elevators are this moment.

Sprint will change course and start prorating early termination fees, the company's CEO said Tuesday. In an interview with the Associated Press, CEO Dan Hesse said the carrier could initiate the practice as early as December, after updating its billing software.

Sprint has been the lone holdout of the major carriers in trimming ETFs as customers near the end of their two-year contract. T-Mobile started prorating fees in June following the lead of Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

Though ETFs have long been the been the bane of consumers, carriers maintain that they are a way for them to recoup costs for offering free or heavily discounted new phones to customers. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents carriers in Washington, supports ETFs for the same reason.

Currently, ETFs are not regulated by the the federal government, but the Federal Communications Commission is considering taking some oversight. During a hearing with the FCC in June, carrier representatives said they would be willing to accept some limitations on ETFs as long as the carriers could be absolved from class action lawsuits over the fees.

iPhone 3G

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

As Apple COO Tim Cook told us last month, the iPhone 3G will land in 20 more countries August 22. Several carriers made their formal announcements this week, including Telefonica and America Movil. Those rivals will overlap in eight Latin American countries. As of this writing we know 17 of the lucky 20 nations, which are listed below. Reuters is predicting that Singapore's SingTel will also join the mix, but the carrier has yet to confirm that report. After August 22, an additional 28 countries are scheduled to get the iPhone 3G before the end of the year. We'll bring you that news as soon as we get it.

August 22 releases

• Argentina - Telefonica and America Movil
• Chile - Telefonica and America Movil
• Colombia - Telefonica and America Movil
• Czech Republic - O2
• Ecuador - Telefonica and America Movil
• El Salvador - Telefonica and America Movil
• Estonia - Eesti Mobii Telefon
• Guatemala - Telefonica and America Movil
• Honduras - America Movil
• Hungary - T-Mobile
• India - Bharti Airtel and Vodafone
• Paraguay - America Movil
• Philippines - GlobeTelecom
• Peru - Telefonica and America Movil
• Poland - Orange and Era
• Romania - Orange
• Uruguay - Telefonica and America Movil

I have to admit that during the past year I've been gloating to my CNET Asia colleagues over the iPhone. I just had to savor the fact that at long last the United States got a hot tech gadget before they did. At least with high-end cell phones, that almost never happens.

But in just a few weeks my bragging days will be over. On July 11, the new iPhone 3G lands not only in the United States with AT&T, but also in 21 19 other countries. In his WWDC keynote address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs included France and Belgium in the initial release list, but Orange has confirmed that French customers will have to wait until July 17. And across the border, Belgium's Mobistar has yet to set a date.

Then, later this year, Apple will ship to an additional 48 nations in every continent except Antarctica. That's 70 countries, kids--a far cry from the six nations in which the current iPhone is available today.

Interestingly, countries such as Australia and Italy will have two supporting carriers. Mainland China and Russia are two big places missing from the list, along with Taiwan, Korea, most of Southeast Asia, and almost the entire Middle East. So for those who missed the rapid-fire map shown during the at the keynote, here's a full list with supporting carriers.

July 11 releases

• Australia - Optus, Telstra and Vodafone
• Austria - Orange and T-Mobile
• Belgium - Mobistar
• Canada - Rogers
• Denmark - Telia
• Finland - Sonera
• Germany - T-Mobile
• Hong Kong - Hutchinson Telecom
• Ireland - O2
• Italy - Telecom Italia and Vodafone
• Japan - Softbank
• Mexico - America Movil
• Netherlands - T-Mobile
• New Zealand - Vodafone
• Norway - NetCom
• Portugal - Orange and Vodafone
• Spain - Telefonica
• Sweden - Telia
• United Kingdom - O2
• Switzerland - Swisscom and Orange

Later releases

• Argentina - America Movil
• Botswana - Orange
• Brazil - America Movil
• Cameroon - Orange
• Central African Republic - Orange
• Chile - America Movil
• Colombia - America Movil
• Croatia - T-Mobile
• Czech Republic - Vodafone and T-Mobile
• Dominican Republic - Orange and America Movil
• Ecuador - America Movil
• Egypt - Orange and Vodafone
• El Salvador - America Movil
• Equatorial Guinea - Orange
• Estonia - Eesti Mobii Telefon
• France - Orange (July 17)
• Guatemala - America Movil
• Guinea - Orange
• Guinea-Bissau - Orange
• Greece - Vodafone
• Honduras - America Movil
• Hungary - T-Mobile
• India - Bharti Airtel
• Ivory Coast - Orange
• Jamaica - America Movil
• Jordan - Orange
• Kenya - Orange
• Latvia - LMT
• Liechtenstein - Swisscom
• Lithuania - OmniTel
• Macau - Hutchinson Telecom
• Madagascar - Orange
• Mali - Orange
• Malta - Vodafone
• Mauritius - Orange
• Nicaragua - America Movil
• Niger - Orange
• Paraguay - America Movil
• Peru - America Movil
• Philippines - GlobeTelecom
• Poland - Orange and Era
• Romania - Orange
• Senegal - Orange
• Singapore - SingTel
• Qatar - Vodafone
• Slovakia - Orange and T-Mobile
• South Africa - Vodacom
• Turkey - Vodafone
• Uruguay - America Movil

Updated June 11, 1 p.m. PDT to reflect French and Belgian developments and additional carrier information.

If you're looking for a prepaid cell phone, sorting through the various plans and carriers can be exhausting. Not only do major carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile offer prepaid plans, but also there are smaller, specialty carriers like Virgin Mobile that do a lot of prepaid business.

So as I said, it can be confusing. But recently I came across a Web site than neatly wraps up all the prepaid options in the United States and Canada. Prepaid Reviews rates the prepaid options from 24 carriers. You can see the pros and cons of each operator, track which phones they offer, write reviews, and read evaluations on several categories. Also, there's a cool option that allows you to compare up to three carriers at once. If you're looking to go prepaid, be sure to check it out.

Together no more?

Rumors are swirling today over the future of Sprint. First off, Seeking Alpha is reporting that Sprint has hired Morgan Stanley for a possible spin-off of its Nextel brand. Sprint's ongoing troubles have been widely reported over the last few months and many analysts have named the 2006 merger between Sprint and Nextel as a key cause of the carrier's ongoing troubles. With that in mind, a spin-off of Nextel may be surprising, but it wouldn't be so shocking.

But that's not the only Sprint dish going around today. The Kansas City Star said that Merrill Lynch analysts are predicting that Deutsche Telekom, owner of T-Mobile USA, is considering buying Sprint. The joining of a CDMA and a GSM carrier seems a bit unlikely, but after Sprint scooped up Nextel I can believe just about anything. Yet what would seem more probable is a Verizon Wireless acquisition of Sprint. But as the Wall Street Journal points out, Verizon should just concentrate on sucking away Sprint's customers. Verizon already decided in 2004 not to buy Sprint so the Journal can't find a reason why it should try again.

In any case, Sprint needs to do something to revive its business. But what exactly should it be? What do you think? Do any of the above options sound like a good idea?

Consumer Reports has put out its regular list of the best cell phones and carriers. Though this time around, I'm more in agreement with the results, like last year there were a few phones on the list I didn't love quite as much. And I'm surprised again as to just how many older models are included. Given Consumer Reports' lead time, keep in mind that none of the phones introduced in the last couple months (such as the LG Voyager) are on the list, but by and large it's quite comprehensive.

The leader of the pack...vroom, vroom.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Out of the 40 phones that Consumer Reports included in its testing, T-Mobile's Motorola V195 took top honor with a score of 68 out of 100. On the whole it was a solid handset with dependable call quality, even though it is a year and a half old. We also liked that it was one of the first phones without a camera to offer Bluetooth. Second place went to AT&T's Samsung Sync SGH-A707 (another 2006 model) with a score of 67, while AT&T's Sony Ericsson W810i secured third place with a score of 65. I'm a bit mixed on these two. Though the Sync wasn't a bad phone by any means, it certainly wasn't one my favorites. On the other hand, I did approve of the W810i. Finally, on the other end of the list were Verizon's LG VX9400 and Sprint's Motorola ic502, which tied for the bottom spot with 51 points each. We actually liked the V Cast Mobile TV-enabled VX9400 but we concur that the ic502 was a stinker.

When broken out by carrier, Consumer Reports also produced some interesting results. The top three Verizon Wireless models were the G'zOne Type-S (63), the LG Chocolate VX8550 (62), and the Nokia 6315i (61). The Chocolate was a very nice model, and the Type-S is one of the most durable handsets around, but the 6315i (yet another 2006 phone) was just average, in our opinion.

The top Sprint phone was the LG Muziq LX570 (60), the Sanyo Katana DLX (58), and the Sanyo M1 (57). All three of those devices were ranked highly in our tests, though it's too bad the magazine never got around to testing the Motorola Razr2 V9m or the LG Rumor. If it had, it would be interesting to see if those handsets would have swayed the results.

For T-Mobile, the aforementioned V195 took the top spot and was followed by the Nokia 6103 (64) and the Samsung SGH-T629 (61). These models were also decent, but I have to disagree with placing them at the top. Instead, I'd move up the Motorola Rizr Z3 and the Nokia 5300, which received scores of just 60 and 54, respectively. Also, the Moto V195s is a more recent update to the V195.

On the AT&T side, the Motorola Razr2 V9 (64) took third place after the previously mentioned the Sync and W810i. I'd disagree here, too, and would have to boost the Razr2 V9 and the (now discontinued) LG CU500v. I also found it odd that the Apple iPhone didn't make the top AT&T list, until I discovered that Consumer Reports left it for its smartphone rankings.

The best smartphone, or so says Consumer Reports.

(Credit: Corrine Schulze/CNET Netwroks)

To its credit, the iPhone topped the list of the best smartphones with a rating of 64. It was followed by the Palm Treo 755p (63) and the Samsung BlackJack (62). Though the BlackJack was fine, I'd ask why the AT&T Tilt or the Nokia N95 or the Samsung SCH-i760 didn't make the list. Verizon's Motorola Q was the lowest ranked smart phone with just 51 points. We pretty much agreed with that assessment and gave the Q a rating of 6.0.

The biggest surprises came from the magazine's carrier ratings. Verizon Wireless took the top ranking in 16 markets except in Minneapolis where T-Mobile was the winner and in Tampa, Phoenix, and Cleveland, where Alltel won. T-Mobile took second place in 14 of the markets, while poor Sprint ranked at the bottom in all but one. Only in Minneapolis did it take the No. 3 spot bumping AT&T down to last place. And speaking of AT&T, America's largest carrier consistently ranked in in the penultimate spot except in Minneapolis and Dallas, where it was the second-best carrier. Interestingly enough, Consumer Reports said AT&T is "home of the iPhone but trails the better carriers in almost all respects." Our own ratings from CNET readers agree.