US mobile customers can now access full length, pay per view movies on their handsets, following the launch of a new service by US cellco Sprint Nextel late Tuesday.

Sprint Movies, which already has the backing of Buena Vista VOD, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures, offers a list of more than 45 titles at launch, including recent hits “National Treasure” and “Spider-Man 2″ and classics such as “Scarface.”

The service, which is powered by mSpot, allows a movie to be seen in its entirety all at once, or can be divided into chapters and watched over time. Customers can play, pause and skip forward or backward to different chapters. They can also resume a movie at the exact point where it was last shut down. The movies are distributed over Sprint’s 1x EV-DO 3G network.

Sprint Movies cost between $3.99 and $5.99 each and customers can view the movie for unlimited times within a set period, which varies between 24 hours and one week depending on the title. In addition, 24-hour titles include the option of purchasing up to two 24-hour viewing extensions at the rate of $0.99.

Sprint already launched a mobile movies service in 2005 with mSpot Movies. This service will continue to be available allowing customers to watch a selection of unlimited movies, TV shows and concerts for a monthly subscription fee of $6.95.

Alana Muller, director of entertainment and product marketing at Sprint said: “Since mSpot Movies launched, subscriber growth has averaged more than 30 per cent month over month, which indicates a strong interest from customers for this type of capability.”

Building on the Treo(TM) 700 family, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today announced the availability of the Palm(R) Treo 700wx smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, adding another Palm EvDO product to Sprint’s (NYSE:S) product offerings.

The Treo 700wx combines a great mobile phone, comprising all the functionality and ease of use for which Treo smartphones are known, with the power and security of Windows Mobile favored by many businesses. Today’s announcement marks the availability of Sprint’s first Windows Mobile Treo smartphone on the Sprint Power Vision(SM) Network, giving its customer base more choices and complementing the Treo 700p smartphone running on the Palm OS(R) platform.

“Palm’s goal is to give our customers more choices to satisfy the growing demands of the mobile work force,” said Tim Roper, vice president, U.S. region, for Palm, Inc. “The Palm user experience combined with ready access to Microsoft’s as well as Good Technology’s world-class email solutions gives mobile professionals a true competitive edge and helps to extend Palm’s reach into the enterprise market.”

“Treo smart devices continue to provide customers with innovation, ease of use and functionality in a stylish form factor,” said Danny Bowman, vice president of product marketing for Sprint. “For customers who prefer to have Microsoft’s Windows operating system applied across all their corporate computing assets, the new Treo 700wx gives users a convenient way to access their business-critical and Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents at broadbandlike download speeds to make just about anyplace a work place.”

Key Productivity Features

The Treo 700wx provides the same great world-class Treo experience and ease of use that customers expect, as well as the following key features:

– Access to Email on the Go: Windows Mobile Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP), which includes Direct Push Technology, native S/MIME support, certificate-based authentication to all Exchange data, and remote and local device wipe, is available out-of-the-box giving smartphone users fast, automatic wireless updates of their email, calendar items, contacts and tasks.(1) The Treo 700wx smartphone offers mobile professionals streamlined access to Good Mobile Messaging through an intuitive Get Good application icon, allowing easy over-the-air provisioning.(2) The solution delivers real-time access to push-based email, calendar items, contacts, notes and tasks. The Treo 700wx smartphone also supports Good Mobile Defense for robust security and fleet management, as well as Good Mobile Intranet, giving users access to web-enabled enterprise systems, including sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM) and corporate intranets.

– Built-in Dial-up Networking (DUN) Capabilities: Treo 700wx smartphone users can take advantage of broadbandlike EvDO download speeds on their laptop computers by using the new smartphone as a wireless modem via USB technology.(3) This out-of-the-box functionality offers an alternative to Wi-Fi, enabling users to access a high-speed connection in coffee shops, airports or hotels.

– Sprint Mobile Broadband Support: Sprint customers using the Treo 700wx have the benefit of Sprint Power Vision services on the nation’s largest mobile broadband network. The Sprint Power Vision Network offers broadbandlike download data speeds averaging up to 400-700 kbps.(4)

“Mobility today means far more than reading email outside the office,” said Suzan DelBene, corporate vice president of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft. “People need to be able to access Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, manage their calendars, search the Internet and more with a single device. We are pleased that Sprint and Palm are launching the Treo 700wx to provide their customers with a powerful smartphone that answers the needs of life on the go.”

Benefits of Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition

Palm’s Windows Mobile based Treo smartphones provide customers with a compelling combination of powerful software, an award-winning form factor, and the ease of use long associated with the Palm experience. Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition provides many user advantages when compared with other smartphones:

– Touch screen: Makes surfing websites, gathering data and navigating forms and applications much easier;

– Copy and paste: Additional functionality provides added productivity;

– Built-in viewers and editors: Ability to view and edit Microsoft Word Mobile and Excel(R) Mobile files, and view PowerPoint(R) Mobile and PDF files;

– Software applications: Large number available for Pocket PC Phone Edition; and

– Saving: Ability to save images and sounds from a website.

Additional Treo 700wx Features and Benefits

– Support for On Demand — users can retrieve personalized information for local news, sports, weather, movies and more;

– Device User’s Guide — customers can view the full User’s Guide (located in the Quick Tour and My Treo sections) right from their device, providing convenient access to tips, troubleshooting techniques and how-to instructions;

– 1.3-megapixel camera to shoot crisp, clear digital images and videos;

– 64MB RAM for program execution (5);

– Integrated Bluetooth(R) 1.2 wireless technology for communicating with compatible headsets, car kits, computers and printers equipped with Bluetooth technology;

– Removable battery and non-volatile memory;

– Expansion-card slot (SD, SDIO, and MultiMediaCard compatible); and

– 240×240 transflective (TFT) screen.

Pricing and Availability

The Palm Treo 700wx smartphone from Sprint is available now at Sprint Stores, Sprint business channels and online at www.sprint.com and www.palm.com/store starting at $499.99 after available discounts and promotions.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today announced its plans to develop and deploy the first fourth generation (4G) nationwide broadband mobile network. The 4G wireless broadband network will use the mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) IEEE 802.16e-2005 technology standard.

Working together with Intel, Motorola and Samsung, Sprint Nextel will develop a nationwide network infrastructure as well as mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices. These efforts are intended to allow Sprint Nextel customers to experience a nationwide mobile data network that is designed to offer faster speeds, lower cost, and greater convenience and enhanced multimedia quality.

The Sprint Nextel 4G mobility network will use the company’s extensive 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, which cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets – the most of any wireless carrier in any single spectrum band. To access that network, Sprint Nextel will work with Intel, Motorola and Samsung to incorporate WiMAX technology for advanced wireless communications and help make chipsets widely available for new consumer electronics devices, connecting consumers to the Internet and to each other while providing them with the flexibility to do what they want or need to do regardless of time or place.

“None of us today can envision our lives without wireless connectivity or the Internet,” explained Gary Forsee, president and chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel. “Sprint Nextel is taking a major step forward by linking the incredible potential of these two cornerstones of daily communications. We’ll give customers the power to harness business information and personal entertainment easily and inexpensively — and in ways that they will one day wonder how they lived without.

This announcement is another step in Sprint Nextel’s broadband mobility leadership, and we expect to establish a first-to-market next generation network advantage. We will have a unique broadband capability for meeting the growing access and mobile Internet needs of businesses, governments and consumers when and where they want.”

In working together with Intel, Motorola, and Samsung, Sprint Nextel has the experience, network infrastructure, spectrum and distribution channels to make 4G mobility services pervasive and indispensable for customers. The company’s deployment plans target a launch of the advanced wireless broadband services in trial markets by the end of 2007 with plans to deploy a network that reaches as many as 100 million people in 2008. Sprint Nextel plans to expand mobile WiMAX network coverage thereafter.

The company will continue to invest in and offer access to its current wireless and Sprint Power VisionSM mobile broadband networks to serve customer communications needs today and into the future. As evidenced by its strong data results and expanding 3G broadband network, Sprint Nextel continues its innovation and leadership in driving mobile data.

New Business Model

Sprint Nextel has created a unique business model designed to foster the rapid deployment and adoption of mobile WiMAX technology in the United States and abroad. Sprint Nextel is expecting to invest $1 billion in 2007 and between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in 2008 relating to the 4G mobile broadband network. The WiMAX technology to be deployed in the network is expected to offer a cost-per-megabit and performance advantage that reflects a substantial improvement in the comparable costs for the current 3G mobile broadband offerings.

Commitments from Intel, Motorola and Samsung in the areas of market development, mobile WiMAX devices and other contributions to Sprint Nextel’s core business are expected to accelerate Sprint Nextel’s goal of deploying services and market adoption. Motorola and Samsung will also support Sprint’s current and CDMA/EV-DO network technologies by creating multimode devices that will support services on both the 4G network and the 3G network in areas outside the planned 4G coverage, and will provide voice service using the core 3G network. The 4G broadband network will offer a complementary, high-bandwidth service driven by data centric devices.

* Intel, one of the early members of the WiMAX Forum and one of the key contributors to the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard, will deliver next generation WiMAX solutions for Centrino Mobile Technology and next generation computing devices. Intel will bring its extensive history in device-to-network verification as well as marketing expertise to expose customers to the breadth of new WiMAX capabilities and services.

* Motorola has been a long-standing proponent of WiMAX and will offer Sprint Nextel both single- and multimode devices designed to enable seamless mobility for users, while playing a major role in its WiMAX infrastructure roll-out. Since Motorola is the exclusive supplier of iDEN technology as well as a major supplier of CDMA and EV-DO Revision A technology, it can offer a complete end-to-end solution (from radio access network equipment to both single- and multimode mobile devices) and is uniquely positioned to expand the seamless mobility experience into the wireless mobile broadband market.

* Samsung Telecommunications America will be a primary Mobile WiMAX infrastructure supplier to Sprint Nextel and will also deliver dual-mode devices supporting Mobile WiMAX and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, designed to enable Sprint’s Mobile WiMAX users to utilize Sprint Nextel’s existing 3G network resources. With its installation of networks in South Korea and other markets, Samsung Electronics is the first to commercially deploy Mobile WiMAX and with its alliance with Sprint Nextel will bring this global expertise to North America. Samsung is the global leader in delivering Mobile WiMAX technologies and offers Sprint a total solution including chipsets, infrastructure, mobile devices and consumer electronics focused on Mobile WiMAX and dual-mode WiMAX/CDMA services delivery.

Sprint Nextel’s long-term goal is to have a broad range of mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets and modules and an array of portable data and consumer electronics devices available from multiple vendors which work seamlessly among Sprint’s network offerings. To that end, Sprint Nextel and other leading consumer electronic companies are planning to form a strategic marketing and product alliance for the purpose of introducing innovative consumer electronic devices and multimedia content solutions using Sprint’s 4G mobile WiMAX network.

“Sprint Nextel has built its success on being a pioneer – beginning with its rollout of the first nationwide digital fiber optic network 20 years ago,” said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel. “With the choice of mobile WiMAX for its 4G mobile broadband technology, Sprint Nextel again helps move the U.S. to the forefront of technology innovation and competitiveness. Sprint Nextel’s decision confirms Intel’s belief that WiMAX is the wireless technology of choice to deliver affordable broadband access. Intel is pleased to work with Sprint Nextel, Motorola and Samsung to bring the promise of mobile broadband and WiMAX to consumers nationwide.”

Motorola Chairman and CEO, Ed Zander, stated, “We are excited that Sprint Nextel has selected WiMAX, and we believe that mobile WiMAX is a perfect choice for a visionary company like Sprint Nextel. Today’s announcement is another milestone in Motorola’s focused strategy to continue to expand and grow our wireless broadband business and advance our vision of seamless wireless broadband mobility. We expect that this decision from one of America’s leading carriers and the largest holder of 2.5GHz spectrum will influence the adoption of mobile WiMAX by other carriers worldwide.”

KiTae Lee, president of Samsung Electronics’ Telecommunication Network Business, stated, “I believe Sprint Nextel’s decision to deploy Mobile WiMAX as the 4G network technology will set a milestone in the U.S. telecommunication industry’s history and contribute to further advancements in wireless technology. Mobile WiMAX has the fastest data transfer rate among the existing wireless technologies and is based on all-IP technology. Mobile WiMAX-based services will create a new paradigm shift in wireless services and improve consumer lifestyles. I believe that Sprint Nextel will successfully provide this mobile WiMAX technology based service and begin a new revolution in mobile broadband services nationwide.”