July 2 - 2:55pm EDT   Sprint this week staked its ground and claimed it would be the first US carrier to have a 3G femtocell. The company was already the first American firm to have any kind of femtocell in the Samsung Airave but now says to Unstrung that it should beat AT&T to having a device that can share 3G data with the home, improving reception for some smartphones and other devices that don't have their own Wi-Fi. Most current femtocells only boost voice service by creating a miniature cellular signal that pipes all data through a home Internet link. [full story]

July 2 - 11:55am EDT   Sales of the Palm Pre have cooled off to where supply is keeping up with demand, JPMorgan analyst Paul Coster said in an investment note today. He believes that about 270,000 Pres will have shipped in the first month of sales but that waiting lists have largely been reduced, revealing a near-ideal balance in what Palm ships each day. About 40,000 of the smartphones are estimated to now ship each week through Sprint directly, while more should also arrive through Best Buy and Radio Shack. [full story]

July 1 - 12:15pm EDT   Sprint today confirmed that its version of the BlackBerry Tour will run head-to-head against the Verizon model this month. The former will ship its Tour on the same day, July 12th, and for the same $200 on a two-year contract. It will also handle world roaming thanks to the addition of quad-band GSM and EDGE as well as European 3G, but it should bring access to Sprint-specific music downloads, TV streaming and a custom NASCAR app. [full story]

July 1 - 10:05am EDT   Palm today told the UK press that it will hold an event July 7th regarding the Pre. The company stops short of confirming it as a launch event, but it's commonly assumed by Pocket-lint and others that the gathering next week will provide details of Pre with GSM and HSPA-based 3G and will likely include a release window as well as details of which carriers will sell the smartphone. Pricing is also a possibility. [full story]

June 30 - 10:55am EDT   Verizon took top honors late Monday in a study of 3G data performance across the US. The tests, performed across 13 cities one day this past spring for PC World, show the carrier's EVDO-based network being the fastest with an average of 951Kbps downstream but also still fairly reliable with 89.8 percent of tests showing uninterrupted performance. Sprint was next closest with a significantly lower average speed of 808Kbps but higher reliability, at 90.5 percent. [full story]

June 30 - 7:55am EDT   Palm may have sold as many as 300,000 Pre phones in less than a month on sale, according to a investor's note by Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder. He estimates that about 120,000 Pres were available on launch day but that these sold out within days and that about 15,000 examples of the multi-touch phone are being made every day, leading to the final estimate for the month. As many as 1 million phones could reach Sprint by the end of the first quarter of sales, which for Palm finishes at the end of August. [full story]

June 30 - 7:15am EDT   Verizon today confirmed launch information for its version of the BlackBerry Tour. As spotted in leaks, the smartphone should ship both online and in retail on July 12th and will carry its expected price of $200 when tied to a two-year contract. The company hasn't yet detailed custom software but is likely to support VZ Navigator and already stresses the phone's dual-mode CDMA/GSM support for calling (and EDGE data) abroad. [full story]

June 29 - 3:35pm EDT   Comcast on Monday marked the launch of its own 4G Internet access in the form of High-Speed 2go [currently a sign-in page]. The service depends on Clearwire's WiMAX network and supplies peak real-world speeds of about 4Mbps downstream anywhere within the coverage range. Like service from Clearwire or Sprint, it's not locked to a particular location and can be had either for mobile use or else as a fixed install at home. [full story]

June 29 - 2:25pm EDT   Wireless provider Sprint on Monday announced it will offer the Motorola Clutch i465 later this summer. First offered by Sprint subsidiary Boost Mobile, the Clutch is a rugged device that meets the US military's 810F specifcations and is rated to withstand temperature and altitude extremes, as well as exposure to dust, shock, vibration and solar radiation. The device is also the first device with a full QWERTY keyboard to run on Sprint's iDEN push-to-talk network. [full story]

June 26 - 12:35pm EDT   Sprint today took a more direct shot at Apple with the posting of a new print ad for the Palm Pre. The large one-page ad centers on the "perfect timing" of the Pre being available just as original iPhone contracts end and underscores the features Palm's phone handles best versus the iPhone, including true app multitasking, real-time notifications and smartphone plans that are potentially less expensive over the two-year span of a contract. [full story]

June 25 - 4:50pm EDT   Wireless provider Sprint is reportedly currently testing the HTC Hero before its release at the end of the year, as well as a portable WiMAX device from Samsung which could be the touchscreen Mondi. According to a Thursday PhoneNews leak, the WiMAX device will ship with the Android operating system, just like the HTC Hero, instead of a Windows Mobile OS, like reported earlier. [full story]

June 25 - 10:40am EDT   Research in Motion is potentially in trouble as discounts it has been counting on for its smartphones are about to end, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu. Citing checks, he claims Verizon's popular buy one, get one (BOGO) promo for the BlackBerry Curve 8330 should end on Saturday the 27th and that it will effectively boost the price of a BlackBerry Storm as a result. Although less expensive than the original $199 launch price, the Storm will move to a fixed $149 price but won't qualify for a BOGO discount that took it down to $99, effectively giving buyers a free extra phone for the Storm's regular price. [full story]

June 24 - 9:30am EDT   Sprint's continued shortages of the Palm Pre could lead to a massive spike in Palm's sales for its current quarter, RBC analyst Mark Abramsky reports in a new investment note today. The researcher esimates that 150,000 Pre smartphones have shipped so far and that as many as 550,000 could ship by the end of Palm's current quarter. Both are up significantly from earlier predictions and could offset a drop in Centro and Treo phone numbers to 258,000. [full story]

June 24 - 7:40am EDT   Apple's newest iPhone actually costs slightly more to make than the older version in spite of the more modest update, iSuppli says. The iPhone 3GS' total bill of materials amounts to $178.96 for a 16GB model, or slightly more than the previous $174.33 of the 8GB iPhone 3G. Some of the cost difference is attributed to recent rises in the prices of NAND flash memory; although 16GB costs less to make than it did a year earlier, a small rebound due to economy-driven supply cutbacks means Apple has had to absorb some costs to double its storage. [full story]

June 22 - 1:45pm EDT   Wireless provider Sprint on Monday has announced it has added the LG LX370 and Samsung Exclaim handsets to its lineup. The former is an entry-level vertical slider while the Exclaim is a dual-slider that open horizontally to reveal a QWERTY keyboard or vertically to offer a numeric keypad. Either connects to Sprint's 3G network to access many online features and services, including social networking sites through customizable shortcuts. A 2-megapixel camera and Bluetooth are also shared by the two handsets. [full story]