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There’s plenty of news this week about new BlackBerry devices, but to kick things off I want to highlight a story that seemed small at first, but grew as word spread throughout the week. T-Mobile has agreed to carry BlackBerry Mobile Voice Systems, a two-year-old platform that allows companies to reroute desk calls to a user’s BlackBerry. This ties in with T-Mobile’s @ Home service, which allows customers to make unlimited calls over a Wi-Fi network, without using any plan minutes. Combined, it means employees can receive calls whether at work or on the road, and if they are in a Wi-Fi hotspot will not be billed for the minutes used.

Read the rest of BlackBerry News From The Wire for the Week of 10/5/2009…

Do you actually enjoy listening to your voicemails? Unless I have a missed call from an attractive female, I usually don’t. The problem, as I see it, is that people just don’t know how to leave a voice message. I’ll either get no information, or way, way, way too much info. So I’ve been searching for solutions.

Last week, we looked at GotVoice, a service that converts your voicemails to a text message and an email. Today, I’ll take a peek at SpinVox, a company that has been making a splash in the industry. I caught up with them at CTIA, and then again at WES. And I have to say that I’m impressed with what they bring to the table.

Read the rest of SpinVox taking voice to text to a new level…

For most of us, the BlackBerry is a relatively new revelation. While the devices have been around since 1999, they really didn’t start gaining traction until the early 21st century. And even then, BlackBerry’s popularity really started its surge recently. In November of 2004, Research In Motion announced that there were over two million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide. This was up from one million earlier in the year. So yes, that means that it took five years to get the first million, and then 10 months to get the second. The third came just six months after that, in May of 2005. Less than a year later, subscribers totaled 5 million. However, in the past two years, RIM has added another 9 million subscribers, and now boast 14 million subscribers. So in less than three-and-a-half years, 13 million people have gotten their hands on BlackBerrys.

Read the rest of The history of the BlackBerry…

And we’re back, with a few BlackBerry-related updates. First up is the future of mobile VoIP — Voice over Internet Protocol. Basically, it’s Skype from your mobile phone. Sprint made a presentation talking about how mobile VoIP has developed, and the possibility of a commercial release in 2009. You can check out some past BBGeeks material on VoIP. Basically, there’s potential to converge voice and data onto one radio frequency, which should drive down costs. There will be more of this in the future. There’s also an update on SpinVox, the speech-to-text application we talked about a few weeks ago, and Slingbox, which is planning BlackBerry availability sometime this year.

So download the latest podcast. And if you like what you hear, make sure to subscribe to the BBGeekcast.

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It’s a very sad day for the BlackBerry community. Russell Shaw, author of the superb BlackBerry Beat blog at ZDNet, among many other publications, passed away on Friday. He was 60. Beyond ZDNet, he wrote plenty for The Huffington Post, and actually ran a second blog for ZDNet, IP Telephony, which focused on VoIP services. And, as if he couldn’t be any more into the BlackBerry, he also wrote for BBHub. So we’ve lost a great contributor, but beyond that, a great man — I didn’t know him personally, but I haven’t read an ill word about him, before or after his death.
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We all herald the Internet connectivity of our BlackBerrys, but few of us take full advantage of its features. For example, I — for one — don’t know many people who use VoIP with their BlackBerry Internet to make International calls. Yeah, it’s more an ideal scenario with the Curve, which has on-board WiFi. But hey, the rest of them still connect to the Internet, so if you’re calling overseas, VoIP calls are still an option. Heck, we know a friend who does that all the time on his Palm Treo. And if Treo users can do it, BlackBerry users can, too!
Read the rest of International VoIP service catered to the BlackBerry…

Awwww, yeah. So it appears that the FCC has leaked Research In Motion plans to launch a Pearl complete with WiFi capabilities. This is a GSM model, so for now we’re talking availability on T-Mobile and AT&T. But it’s a significant upgrade for those who use their Pearl mainly for Internet access. It helps doubly on T-Mobile, where we figure it will be compatible with HotSpot @ Home. That is, if it ends up being available through them.
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We were psyched up enough when Research In Motion announced that the new BlackBerry would be WiFi capable. We’re getting to a good point with mobile data speed, but it still doesn’t come close to a solid WiFi connection. Now, though, it appears that T-Mobile will be tying in the soon-to-be-released 8320 with their Hotspot @Home service. So now not only will you have WiFi data transfers, but you’ll also have free calling at T-Mobile Hotspots.
Read the rest of Make calls via WiFi on your T-Mobile BlackBerry…

We read this somewhere, but can’t exactly remember the source, so excuse our paraphrasing. Some of the best companies were founded because someone had a problem, and the company’s goal was to solve it. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, had trouble finding things on the Internet, so they started to figure out a better way to implement search. Steve Jobs and Paul Allen, founders of Apple, were looking for a relatively cheap and easy to use personal computer, so they developed one. Jing Liu, founder of MINO, was having difficulties communicating with business colleagues while he was overseas because international roaming is so expensive. So he developed a mobile VoIP service provider.
Read the rest of Mobile VoIP can save you valuable minutes…

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve wished — and heard other people wish aloud — that the BlackBerry would support WiFi connections. It makes total sense. There are so many WiFi hotspots around, which would certainly speed up the BlackBerrian process. It appears now that our wishes will come true, as Research In Motion has been green lighted by the FCC for the creation of a BlackBerry with WiFi functionality. This is just another in a series of victories for RIM, and although the increase in earnings is wonderful news, this may be the best of the bunch.
Read the rest of You wanted WiFi, you got WiFi…