Filed under: Helio, Virgin Mobile, MVNOs

Do you hear that, Helio? That [cue Sir Richard Branson’s soothing voice] is the sound of inevitability. Rumors have been swirling for a few weeks now that SK Telecom — Helio’s majority owner — is getting ready to cut, run, and offload its share to Virgin Mobile, rolling the scrappy MVNO into the one and only virtual network in the US that’s been met with substantial, quantifiable success (more recent stock woes notwithstanding). Now, the Financial Times is reporting that a deal is cued up and ready for a public introduction as early as this week. The sooner, the better, because tons of questions remain about the fate of subscribers and the introduction of the pretty hotly anticipated Ocean 2, a device that at one time could’ve been Helio’s savior; too late for that now, we guess.

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Filed under: Handsets, Messaging, Multimedia, Software, Windows Mobile

Digital content sharing from mobile to desktop is all the rage at every show we’ve been to in the last year, and frankly, we’d grown a bit tired of it. We had a chance to hook up with the gents from Dashwire in recent times and the Dashwire push and pull solution fairly blew our socks off. Of course, this has been around for a little while now, but it seems baby’s all grown up and Dashwire 2.0 is set for release today. How much does all this cost and is it worth playing with? It’s completely free and follow on to read more — but by way of a hint, we’re still cheering.

Continue reading Dashwire 2.0 launches, mobile finally meets web

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Verizon Wireless, EV-DO, CDMA, Casio

Training materials from Verizon break down the nitty gritty on just what makes its new EV-DO Rev. A-based push-to-talk network better than the outgoing 1xRTT-based system, and apart from a totally unnecessary cameo by the “Can you hear me now?” guy, it’s pretty enlightening. First, we learn that users will now be able to rock 500 individual contacts, 100 group contacts, and 50 contacts per group, up from 150, 50, and 20, respectively. As we’ve known, it’ll also support presence, meaning callers will know whether you’re available to annoy everyone around you before they hit the button. The slides on the two launch devices — the Motorola V750 Adventure and Casio G’zOne Boulder — don’t reveal much new information, but we do see here that the black / silver version of the Boulder will be available with or without a camera for companies that like to clamp down on those sorts of things. See the rest after the break.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Continue reading Verizon’s new PTT: presence support, more contacts

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Filed under: Motorola, ATT, Misc

Look, everyone knows things aren’t exactly gangbusters over at Motorola right now, but it’s downright depressing when you’ve got to pat your own self on the back for an award given to you by AT&T. Even worse, the Outstanding Supplier recognition “in the area of teamwork” seems like something that should be expected as one mega-corp works with another, but we digress. Moto was apparently one of 27 that received similar awards, though we haven’t tallied up precisely how many others felt the need to publicly gloat. Said Dan Moloney, president of Motorola’s Home and Networks Mobility business, “we are delighted to be named amongst AT&T’s best of the best in teamwork.” And we’re delighted for you, Mr. Moloney.

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Filed under: Verizon Wireless, KDDI, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Studies, China Mobile, LTE

With Planet Earth’s wireless juggernauts jumping on the LTE train while there’s still room, we suppose the latest report from ABI Research isn’t all that shocking. According to it, there will be some 32 million LTE network subscribers by 2013, and with the commercial launch not expected to go down before 2010, our abacus suggests that we’re talking about 32 million over just 3 years. The firm asserts that the Asia-Pacific region will account for most of those folks (around 12 million), while the rest get split 60% / 40% between Western Europe and North America. You think we’re just going to let you make this outlandish claim and then fuhgetaboutit, don’t you ABI? Nah, we’re creating a Google Calendar reminder for this day in 2013 right now to check back and see just how accurate you really were.

[Via SlashPhone]

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Filed under: Alltel, Verizon Wireless, EV-DO, CDMA, Misc

From the moment Verizon Wireless made its intentions to purchase Alltel official, subscribers of the latter began wondering what the fate of My Circle would be. As it stands, there’s still no definitive answer on that topic, but VZW is introducing a new feature for its Business users that bears a striking resemblance to Alltel’s current merry-go-round. The plan, which is only available to customers of the Verizon Freedom for Business unlimited long-distance service, enables users to have unlimited conversations with five chosen numbers for $4.99 per month. Sadly, we haven’t a clue whether the carrier is planning to roll a similar option out to its non-enterprise users, but the timing here is certainly curious, wouldn’t you agree?

[Via InformationWeek]

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Filed under: Software, Verizon Wireless

Details are still trickling in on this whole visual voicemail sitch on Big Red, but we’re starting to wrap our noodle around it. In addition to the four devices we’ve already mentioned — the Voyager refresh, Chocolate 3, Blaze, and Utopia — it turns out that none other than the mighty BlackBerry Thunder will be among the first devices to benefit from sooper dooper 22nd century high-tech voicemail management.

We’ve also learned that it’s actually the Vu30 (little close to the LG Vu, eh, guys?) that’s being called the Motorola Utopia, while the Blaze will be some heretofore unknown touchscreen device — pretty uncommon by Moto standards, particularly in the States where we don’t get to benefit from the MING series’ awesomeness. As always, we’ll roll out more info as we get it.

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