Beginning today, Verizon launches new monthly service plans. The customers may sign up for a new Nationwide Unlimited Talk plan that allows them to call anyone in the United States for $69.99 monthly access or a Nationwide Unlimited Talk & Text plan to call and send text, picture and video messages to anyone in the country for $89.99 monthly access.

The company also announced the expansion of the 25 megabyte for $9.99 per month data package requirement to include all Verizon Wireless 3G Multimedia phones.

At the special Android press conference in Mountain View, Google officially confirmed the company’s first phone – the Nexus One.

This HTC-branded device is running Android 2.1 and comes with 3.7" AMOLED 480x800 WVGA display, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, 512MB flash onboard memory and 4GB removable SD Card (expandable to 32GB), 5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash and geo tagging, stereo Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack, compass, GPS, accelerometer and light and proximity sensor.

Nexus One is initially available from the new Google web store in the US without service for $529 or starting at $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA.

Larger-scale mobile WiMAX network deployments are finally becoming a reality, according to recent ABI Research report.

The research shows Clearwire in the United States has already declared 173,000 subscribers, Yota in Russia has been growing at a decent rate reaching 100,000 subscribers in August and 200,000 in October, and PacketOne in Malaysia has reached 130,000 subscribers.

It is now official and will completely change the mobile and PND navigation market. Google announced Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 devices.

It comes with 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting, but unlike most navigation systems, the Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of the phone's internet connection, as Google claims.

The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation is Motorola’s Droid. It hits the U.S. market next week (Nov. 6th) for $199 on contract.

Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, and Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless, held a joint conference call in New York to announce their companies’ new partnership.

They said Verizon will deliver “devices of the future” with leading-edge mobile applications and services using Google’s Android open platform in coming weeks.

During the conference McAdam confirmed Verizon plans to support Google Voice.

Palm has appointed Jon Rubinstein, the man credited with delivering Apple's iPod and iMac, as its new CEO and chairman.
He replaces Ed Colligan, who is stepping down after sixteen years leading the company. The executive changes come just a few days after Palm launched its Pre smartphone.

The execs at Google are happy to let the public know that no less than 18 handsets running Android will be on the shelves by year end, for sale and ready for use. Most of these handsets, though, will not be available in the US. And, the OEMs of these handsets are not being publicised.

It wasn't until late 2007 that Android was released on the carriers, and most phones take 18 months on average from concept to being on a shelf for sale. Meaning, we are actually about to see the promise of numerous handsets hitting the marketplace. Its not a big mystery who the OEMs are (check out the open handset alliance list of OEMs), with HTC, Moto, Samsung and others all making announcements over the last year. For Moto in particular, there is a lot riding on the introduction of their first Android device. many pundits have weighed in on the coming Android tidal wave, its good fun watching as the market takes shape. Releases never happen as quickly as you would like, and certainly speculation is rampant on the impact Android will have on the smartphone market place. Apple is kicking ass right now, Blackberry is dominant for business users and Nokia sells more phones than every other OEM combined. Android has a big challenge ahead in terms of gaining marketshare.

Matt Richtel does a nice job on the NYTimes blog on the subject. My favorite part, though, comes from one of the comments:

Rumors of ATT and Verizon bringing out android phones seems interesting since neither belong to the open handset alliance but I think are charter members of the Crippled Handset Alliance.

Its so true that those two firms go out of their way to simultaneously claim they are 'open' and yet produce the most closed systems and devices.

Open Handset Alliance OEM List

Verizon has opened a new mobile control portal for FiOS and Digital services on Verizon Wireless phones.

The portal, dubbed MyVerizon is currently in Beta and supports the FiOS TV DVR by allowing mobile scheduling and listings review while also allowing Verizon Digital Voice service controls such as voice mail retrieval, call log management, and feature settings.

In the future, the portal will support Verizon Hub and FiOS Voice services with the same aforementioned controls.

Verizon Wireless has internally detailed plans to relaunch and revamp their newly rebranded Verizon Prepaid service with new service tiers and price adjustments.

The following changes will be made to service tiers starting tomorrow:

• New Prepaid Basic tier: 25¢/min voice, 25¢/SMS message, no daily access fee
• No changes to Prepaid Core
• No changes to Prepaid Plus other than Unlimited Night/Weekend for no additional charge
• Prepaid Power becomes Unlimited Talk and increases daily access fee to $3.99 in exchange for unlimited peak voice, Night/Weekend and Mobile to Mobile with 1¢/SMS sent and received.

To promote the relaunch, Verizon will also be offering new bundles with the samsung u340 and u430, Nokia 6205, and Verizon Blitz that include a $100 refill card and factor in the $25 activation fee for the service.  The new tiers will not be available online until a timeframe between March and April.

Whether the long, cold waits - and, for many, ultimately empty-handed departures - were down to a security issue or general inventory problems is still not clear.
What's certain is that the Blackberry Storm's US launch didn't go as either exclusive operator Verizon or maker Research In Motion would have wished.

A security issue could lead to shortages of Verizon's Blackberry Storm on its US launch day today.
The last minute hitch has forced both maker RIM and exclusive operator Verizon to update the firmware and reduce supplies of phones, according to a report on BGR.

Verizon Wireless has exceeded analysts’s predictions and posted impressive second quarter earnings of US$1.88 billion.
A key factor in the results was increased smartphone sales, which now account for 30 per cent of the US carrier’s device sales.
Denny Strigl, Verizon’s president and COO, even went as far as to give the build up of interest for the 3G iPhone’s launch earlier this month some of the credit for his company’s results.

The success of Research In Motion’s Blackberry Curve will ensure the company announces good first quarter 2008 results, according to analysts.
Simona Jankowski, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, said results, driven by US sales of its Curve at Verizon Wireless, were likely to be at the high end of current guidance when revealed on June 25.
“Our view is based on very strong retail checks suggesting that the Curve remains the most popular device among consumers and small and medium businesses alike, partially offset by a softer enterprise environment,” she said.