It appears Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. will be able to unload some of its final CDMA phones in North America as Sprint PCS announced it will sell a limited number of Sony Ericsson’s Bluetooth-enabled T608 phones.
The move comes almost six months after Sony Ericsson announced it would shut down its North American CDMA business.
Sprint Dec. 22 began selling the color-screen T608 for $200 through its 1-866-PCS-AUTO sales number. Sprint said it will not offer its standard unlimited Vision data plan with the phone, but will instead provide 3 megabytes worth of data per month for $15. The reason, the carrier said, is to prohibit users from connecting the phone to a laptop through a Bluetooth connection, thereby generating far more data traffic than they could by using just the phone itself.
Further, Sprint said it would sell the phone only in limited quantities through its toll-free sales number because Sony Ericsson cannot provide full support for the phone.
Sony Ericsson said in June it would close its North American CDMA business. The move essentially left the T608 and the similar T606 in a state of limbo, because Sony Ericsson had introduced the phones but had not yet started selling them.
Sony Ericsson told RCR Wireless News it would sell its remaining T608 phones through Sprint, however, it will not sell its remaining T606 phones, essentially writing them off. Sony Ericsson would not provide details on its T606 writeoff, including the number of phones or financial impact.
