verizon

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Verizon Wireless has released a pink version of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130, making for a nice little mate to the silver model. We first caught wind of this blush-colored smartphone at CES 2008 when RIM, perhaps without Verizon's knowledge, showed it off at their booth, but all is rosy now. You can grab the pink Pearl starting today for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after discounts and rebates. We suspect Sprint's red BlackBerry Pearl won't be too far behind.

Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications both see an opportunity to make a buck on their IP telephony patents after successfully suing Vonage Holdings last year.

On Thursday, Sprint Nextel said in a U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kan., that it was suing four small phone companies. Sprint alleges that Nuvox Communication, BroadVOX Holdings, Big River Telephone, and Paetec Communications are infringing on six of its patents.

Those patents, part of a larger portfolio of patents that cover voice over IP technology owned by Sprint, are the same ones used to successfully sue Vonage. The two companies eventually settled the … Read more

WASHINGTON--Just a few months ago, Verizon Wireless was protesting "open access" rules requiring mobile operators to let their customers use whatever devices or applications they please.

Now it's inviting gadget developers to swap ideas at a two-day conference in New York City, scheduled for March 19 and 20.

It's all part of the company's new Open Development Initiative, which was unveiled after Thanksgiving. Seemingly in a nod both to regulatory pressure and movement by companies like Google in the mobile space, the No. 2 wireless carrier said it had decided to open up its network … Read more

Update at 10:05 a.m. PST Wednesday: A Copps aide called us on Wednesday to say that his boss didn't intend to give the impression that he opposes new regulations on the wireless industry. He pointed us to a sentence in Copps' speech (PDF) in which the Democratic commissioner said he would "enthusiastically support" the FCC's declaration of "general principles for open wireless platforms" at any time. Copps did then go on to say, as we reported Tuesday, that he would not "strongly object" to industry-led initiatives, "at least for … Read more

A Verizon Communications executive said Thursday that his company hasn't been hit by a U.S. economic slowdown.

Dennis Strigl, chief operating officer for Verizon, addressed concerns about an economic slowdown impacting the No. 2 phone company's business during a Citigroup investor conference. Earlier this week, AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson spooked Wall Street by blaming a weak economy for a rise in residential broadband and landline customers who couldn't pay their bills during the fourth quarter of 2007.

Strigl said Verizon hasn't been affected in the same way. Specifically he said the company'… Read more

Catching Verizon Wireless and Sprint off-guard, Research in Motion showed off some upcoming colored models of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 for the respective carriers at CES 2008. The red version will go to Verizon, joining the silver Pearl 8130, while the powder-pink model will land at Sprint along with the purple Pearl. No specific release dates were given, but I'd guess the launch dates aren't too far away--February at the latest.

Today, Verizon Wireless added a new smartphone to its lineup, and it looks to be a goody. Manufactured by HTC, the Verizon Wireless SMT5800 takes after the HTC Vox in design and boasts a compact cell-phone-like form factor yet manages to pack in a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. There's also an alphanumerical dialpad on the exterior of the device.

The features are pretty much standard fare. It runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition and has a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 (with support for the A2DP profile), and EV-DO. Onboard memory is 128MB Flash/64MB RAM and comes equipped … Read more

At CES a day before it opens, and although I've been able to sneak into some of the exhibition halls with my press pass, security's wised up and closed the others off to all but people setting up. So I spent a few minutes in the Verizon-sponsored portion of the press booth playing with LG's Voyager 10000, a would-be competitor to the iPhone. They're asking $300 plus a two-year contract commitment--that's $99 cheaper than the least-expensive iPhone, but the Voyager comes with much less memory (this one had 300MB on board), so you'll have … Read more