This is going to kill Sprint as far as things go. Really it's pretty much making the market AT&T (71m) v.s. Verizon (80m), with T-Mobile being the smaller middle man (31m). Sprint still has 58m customers up for grabs, however, so we'll have to wait and see what carrier they start to jump to.

Anyways, reason I posted this was to bring up the question, Will Verizon take on the "My Circle" benefit of Alltel?

Apple was working with Verizon to put out the iPhone as early as the late 90's, but Verizon didn't want to give creative control to Apple for the price plans, phone pricing, etc., so Apple went to AT&T and made a deal.

Plus CDMA is an outdated technology. EV-DO is fast (and has a future), but Verizon/Alltel have to worry about switching their network over to GSM to be able to work with the rest of the world. Their network now is similar to how the United States uses feet and miles instead of meters and kilmeters like the rest of the world. If the iPhone had come out on a CDMA network it would have been a waste of time because they still would have had to make a GSM for all the other countries, so going through AT&T made sense. Plus if you actually go into an AT&T or Apple store and try out the iPhone yourself, instead of jumping on the "it's slow on edge" bandwagon, you'd see that it's actually faster or equal in page loading time to a lot of the Verizon phones on EV-DO.

I think this merger will benefit Verizon by giving it the good customer service Alltel has focused and built it's business on, while helping Alltel because obviously they move from number 5 to number 1.

I'm curious to see what will happen in the next year when T-Mobile gets their 3G network up and running... curious to see who's customers they're going to take... AT&T or Alltel/Verizon (Sprint loses theirs to everyone, so that'll be a given).

Not going to happen, but interesting to consider. Sprint may be ailing, but it could make you a lot of money. Not catching on... well consider that it's been on it's way down for a while now and like most things in this stage has been considering being sold to the right buyer. Wait for the shares of Sprint stock to drop low enough ($2/share or so) and the buyer will jump in and swoop it up and the merger will skyrocket the stock prices and there's your money... just like the at&t and cingular one.

It's nice Verizon is offering non-smartphones with Qwerty keyboards to appeal to the "texters", but how many times are they going to redo the LG Envy? The LG Voyager is the Envy with a touch screen and this Samsung Glyde is now the Envy that slides instead of flips. Plus it's all locked down with the Verizon platform on it, so the software is essentially the same.

If I wanted a texting phone i'd go get a Sidekick LX and if i'm dishing out money on a new phone i'd wait for the new iPhone or BB Bold.

I was thinking that, too. I thought the LG Vu would be pretty cool, but aside from the real web browser it has been a let down. It's not nearly as responsive to touch as the iPhone, the screen is sort of dim, the video on the TV is a bit out of focus, and it doesn't allow you to use google maps if you download it. Plus the full retail price of $549.99 because of the tv chip is a turnoff right away. If i'm spending $299.99 on this, why not spend $399 and get the iPhone?

The Samsung Acess on the other hand was one I was expecting to be nothing special, but was kind of a nice surprise. The screen resolution is definetly hi-def. It loads up the TV quick and is crystal clear. Every detail looks great. Aside from this it has the feel of the Blackjack with the size, shape and keypad layout. Only negative would be the 1.3mp camera on it, which would have been nice if it was 2.0, but can't complain with a $199.99 price tag it's a good deal.

Cool idea and not bad looking, but I agree that $240-$300 per sweater is a bit excessive. The only people who will be able to wear these are the celebs, high class, and middle class who want to blow their return from Bush this month or the next. Where is the love if no one can afford to wear one?

Because the major five companies have the money to buy lawyers who find the laws that they can use to get the government to work for them within the legal limits. The smaller companies and citizens don't have the money to even compete or fight back, especially when it's against your own government.

Look at the documentary "The Death Of The Electric Car". It's all about how California's CARB board was trying to address the major smog issues in the mid-90's by mandating every automaker had to make at least 10% no emission vehicles to be able to sell any vehicles in the state of California. In 1996, GM came out with a industry changeing EV-1, fully electric car. Other car companies, like Ford, Chevy and Toyota, soon followed with less promising models. While they were making the no emission electric cars to comply with the state mandate, they were also fighting by suing the state to get the mandate dropped. They bought all the rights to the electric technology and then got the Government to back them in 2000 when George W Bush took office. Soon almost all the major car companies AND THE U.S. GOVERNMENT were suing the state of California to not mandate car companies make non-emission cars. By 2004 all the electric cars were stopped and recalled and now it's a technology of the past, with only recent hybrid models coming out. How does it make sense for our own Government to stop the production of safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly cars like this?!?

I agree that the monthly services could be cheaper, since they offer more for less in other countries, but look at how many people finance tv's, computers, cars, etc. It makes sense that 99% of the customers would choose to pay less up front and the rest over 2yrs v.s. a lot up front. People like to spend less up front so they can buy more with the money they have in their pocket and they'll worry about the monthly payments later.

The drums has already been done. Looks kind of lame because hearing people play the drums and singing is annoying in the living room.

No competition for the iPhone, especially with the release date being in June, also, but looks like a big step up from the HTC Touch, which Sprint originally had launched to try and compete with the current iPhone and was not even close.

Will be tough to market this phone to anyone other than loyal Sprint customers (with AT&T launching the iPhone 2, BB Bold and just getting the LG Vu, T-Mobile possibly getting a new Danger phone, and not to mention the new HTC Diamond).