There are rumors that Palm didn't announce specific carrier rollout details with the Treo 680 announcement because those details aren't yet worked out. There is speculation that Cingular may intend to offer the phone for free with a 2-year contract that includes unlimited data access.
From an article at Crunchgear:
We’ve gotten word from a tipster that the reason that Palm didn’t announce any carrier availability during their Treo 680 announcement was because they’re still trying to pound out the specifics... Cingular, T-Mobile... are driving a hard bargain.
One method of deployment possible is with Cingular, offering their 680 for free, but forcing the customer to sign up for a $30 internet plan. What’s the catch? The customer can’t change or remove that $30 internet plan for the entire 2-year contract period. Doing so would incur the wrath of Cingular in the form of fees and a dog going over to chew on your tender areas. If you do the math, $30 for two years makes you…taking the integral…$720 poorer.
Of course this is just a possible launch plan. Another could be a partner with T-Mobile to offer the same thing. Except T-Mobile really wants Palm to cough up a Treo with WiFi so T-Mobile can sell their hotspot plans.
This article actually talks about Verizon and Sprint driving a hard bargain too. This lends some doubt to the article, because the Treo 680 is a GSM phone that won't work on their CDMA networks. No CDMA version of the Treo 680 is even rumored to be in the works.
One reader on Crunchnet pointed out that the Treo 680 is being marketed as a low-end phone not because it doesn't have high-speed 3G data access, but because of Palm OS it can't. This is a good point and one that has been discussed before on various internet sites. Here is an excerpt from the comment post:
Hugh Jass
October 16th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
... Garnet (Palm OS 5) can’t support an additional data stack. You get voice, 1xRTT/GPRS/EDGE/EvDO data, and Bluetooth. Your data service would have to be disabled in order to access the WiFi, as Shadowmite’s hack a couple years ago showed us. Palm can certainly write a driver to do this properly, but they won’t. And T-Mobile will certainly have no say in the matter.
Oh, and off subject, but Garnet can’t support UMTS/HSDPA either, so you’re out of luck there too — that’s why the 680 lacks 3G. It’s being marketed as an entry-level phone because it can’t support GSM 3G, not because it doesn’t.
Read the full article by Richard Ozerman at Crunchgear.
Update: Recent rumors confirm an upcoming Cingular launch. See our article Treo 680 Coming to Cingular (10/22/06).
