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T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, seems interested in buying Sprint Nextel, according to this Engadget article, which is based on a report from German newspaper Der Spiegel.

Sprint already has enough problems trying to absorb Nextel’s incompatible network. The combined company has bled subscribers ever since the 2005 merger was announced. Check these articles from the Wall Street Journal and Engadget for more of the gory details, including this quote from February 2008:

Sprint lost more money in the fourth quarter of 2007 than the company is worth.

Add GSM to this mix and Sprint’s “deal from hell” would only get worse. However, DT has been rolling out UMTS, a 4G technology that supports GSM and CDMA, in its European and US markets.

The interesting part pf all this is that Nextel may not be included in the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal and Engadget. Spring may spin off Nextel, giving the push-to-talk provider its independence.

Related posts on billso.com

• 23 April 2008: Amazon’s Kindle hasn’t caught fire yet
• 22 Feburary 2008: Sprint and Boost vs Mobi PCS
• 20 January 2008: Nokia, Sprint announce layoffs
• 29 September 2006: ESPN sacked, Helio scrambling

From the New York Times, here’s a report about the booming gray market for iPhones in China. iPhones are manufactured in Taiwan, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apple doesn’t sell the iPhone in Taiwan or in Communist China because no Chinese telecom operator will meet Apple’s demands. So there’s not legal way to buy an iPhone in Taiwan or China.

No carrier? No support? No problem.

It’s relatively easy to unlock an iPhone and use it with on a GSM network. Third-party software is available to localize the screens and provide missing features. When Apple updates the iPhone’s firmware, these unlocks tend to break. This article from Business Week mentions that Prague is a major center for iPhone hacking.
But someone who is using an iPhone in China may not care that much about these new features. As more iPhones enter the gray market, more programmers join the effort to jailbreak the device.

This makes me wonder what might have happened if Apple sold unlocked GSM iPhones online and in its retail stores, and told AT&T, T-Mobile and every other GSM carrier in the world to just deal with it. The customer service problems might be significant, which explains why Apple has decided not to break the rules… yet.

I also wonder how many iPhones have been purchased in Honolulu and then shipped outside the United States.

Silicon Hutong predicted over a year ago that Apple would wait to introduce the iPhone in China. Looks like he was right!

See my earlier posts about the iPhone:

• 31 January 2008: Applications are coming for the iPhone
• 26 January 2008: iPhone helps AT&T add more wireless customers
• 13 January 2008: The story of the iPhone
• 20 November 2007: An iPhone for China?
• 14 November 2007: No iPhone for you, China

Sprint announced that it will roll out its no-contract, no-credit-check, no-activation-fee mobile phone plan, Boost Mobile, in Hawaii. Pricing is lower than local operator Mobi PCS, according to this Star-Bulletin article. I discussed Mobi PCS on 21 May 2007. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have announced US$99 per month unlimited mobile plans, but these require contracts. Contracts are one way to lock-in customers, as I noted earlier today. Competition for mobile phone customers has become more intense in the last few months, as I noted on 26 January 2008.

Motorola announced last month that it wants to sell its mobile phone unit, which is ranked third in global market share, according to Engadget.

No one’s buying. This month, several companies including Samsung and Dell have announced that they are not interested in laying out US$9 to 12 billion for the business.

It’s a bit of a shock. The Motorola brand name is well known, and the company has remained competitive. Certainly some up-and-coming manufacturer would want that nameplate! It’s the kind of play that made sense a few years ago, when Chinese manufacturer Lenovo purchased IBM’s personal computer business, including the ThinkPad name.

Motorola executives backpedaled last week at the Mobile World Congress, announcing that the company remains committed to the mobile handset industry.

Last Monday, Microsoft purchased Danger, the developer of T-Mobile’s Sidekick line. Om Malik estimated that Microsoft paid US$500 million for a mobile handset line that has a decent market share among the under-30 crowd.

From today’s New York Times: Starbucks is switching WiFi providers. After a 6-year deal with T-Mobile, the milk-and-coffee merchant will offer WiFi access through AT&T. The arrangement gives AT&T 17,000 WiFi access points throughout the US, vaulting the telco to the number one spot in the country. AT&T has 70,000 WiFi hot spots worldwide.

AT&T has added mobile subscribers through its iPhone deal and other initiatives, while T-Mobile has struggled to keep pace.  However, AT&T will allow T-Mobile customers to use the Starbucks hot spots free of charge, through a roaming agreement. This should appease some T-Mobile subscribers who used Starbucks hot spots.

Starbucks card users will receive a free 2 hour WiFi session each day. Additional time on the wireless network starts at US$4 for 2 hours. AT&T broadband subscribers already had free access to AT&T hot spots as of last month.

Starbucks benefits by gaining access to AT&T’s larger mobile subscriber base. Other users will have a new reason to get and use a Starbucks card. Enhanced wireless access means that Starbucks customers might stay longer, and buy more items during their visit.

Chains like Starbucks often use a single national vendor for telecom offerings such as WiFi, to reduce security issues, consolidate reporting, and provide consistent services and branding across locations.

They won’t be buying breakfast sandwiches, though.