Word: cingular
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...former German telephone�monopoly Deutsche Telekom took a leap of faith across the Atlantic and bought an upstart U.S. mobile-phone company called VoiceStream Wireless for $46.5 billion. Telekom's management was excoriated for paying an exorbitant price for the smallest operator in a crowded market, dwarfed by giants Cingular, Verizon and Sprint. But the bet paid off. Today, the U.S. arm of T-Mobile, the German mother ship's wireless unit, is still ranked fourth, but it is the fastest-growing part of the $75 billion company and well on its way to becoming Telekom's largest revenue source...
...Since it's a Cingular device, it uses GSM and its relevant data networks, the low bandwidth GPRS and the tolerably fast EDGE. EDGE isn't as fast as the "broadband"EVDO used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint, nor is it as fast as Cingular's own high-speed data network, but operating on a slower network has the benefit of power efficiency. In the day and a half since I last charged its battery, after plenty of e-mails and some light calling, it hasn't dropped a bar's worth of juice...
...Cingular's big problem here is that it doesn't have a good plan for the converts, people who want mobile e-mail but don't have the corporate allowance to cover the high monthly fee. T-Mobile knows this: unlimited web browsing and e-mail on a BlackBerry is just $20 on top of most regular voice plans. At Cingular, unlimited data will cost you $40 a month, in addition to a $40 450-minute voice plan. That's $80 per month before all of those weird extra charges. Cingular does have a $20 SmartPhone Connect Unlimited plan...
...comparison, Verizon Wireless sells its Motorola Q smart phone for the same price but charges $80 a month for unlimited data and just 450 min. of talk. It's likely that Cingular will soon be selling Pearls and that Verizon Wireless and Sprint will one day offer a similar BlackBerry--but you may never again find a monthly rate this good...
...ever wondered whether the carrier or phone maker has more control over the cell phone in your pocket, let me make it clear: it's the carrier. Last week, I reviewed an LG phone that Cingular launched to run on its high-speed digital network. This week, I looked at Chocolate, the hyped-up LG phone Verizon Wireless introduced in order to draw more attention to its V Cast Music service (LINK). Both phones are very slick in entirely different ways, highlighting the priorities of the carrier. Chocolate is as much Verizon's as it is LG's, and although...