Rumor: China Telecom, RIM Make Progress in Blackberry Talks

CWW, 7/06/09

According to an industry source, China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) has revealed that the operator's talks with Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the Blackberry mobile handset, have progressed further, with RIM providing several possible plans to China Telecom. China Telecom has reportedly selected "Option B" – that is, providing service to individual users and bundling certain allowances of internet traffic usage into user service plans. China Telecom and RIM will cooperate on lowering Blackberry user costs, the source said, "but they won't lower the costs so much that everyone will want one." China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) currently provides Blackberry services at a minimum monthly charge of RMB 398, including 50M of domestic GPRS traffic.

Previous reports said that the first Blackberry product to arrive in China via China Telecom would be RIM's touchscreen Storm 9530 EV-DO handset.

Keywords: 0728.HK 0941.HK Blackberry bundling CHA China Mobile China Telecom CHL RIM wireless mobile phone tariffs mobile e-mail

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