T-Mobile USA to Offer First 3G BlackBerry Smartphone with Voice Calling over Wi-Fi

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-T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced the upcoming availability of the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 with Wi-Fi Calling from T-Mobile. It will be the first 3G-powered BlackBerry smartphone available through T-Mobile USA, and also the first smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) that includes built-in support for both 3G connectivity and voice calls over Wi-Fi®.

Powerful and refined, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone offers top-of-the-line performance, functionality and features with a sophisticated, high-gloss black finish, chrome highlights and leatherette back. It includes support for 3G HSDPA networks around the world, a next-generation (624 MHz) processor, 256MB Flash memory, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g).

“Increasingly, T-Mobile customers are expanding the use of their BlackBerry smartphones by communicating with friends and family online and through the latest applications and services,” said Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA, Inc. “Customers deserve a fast and reliable broadband experience, and that’s what we’re delivering with the new BlackBerry Bold on T-Mobile’s nationwide 3G network.”

For people who need to be connected, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone provides the industry’s leading mobile e-mail and messaging solution, and access to popular social networking applications, such as Facebook®. It features RIM’s distinctive, fretted highly tactile full-QWERTY keyboard for fast and accurate typing, and an innovative touch-sensitive optical trackpad, which makes for a great navigation experience. It also features rich multimedia capabilities with a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and video recording; a sharp, dazzling high-resolution display; and a music and video player.

“The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 delivers state-of-the-art features and performance in a compact and beautifully designed handset,” said Don Morrison, chief operating officer, Research In Motion. “This sleek and powerful 3G smartphone offers an incredibly refined mobile experience that is ideal for both personal and professional use.”

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 offers easy access to BlackBerry App World™, the official app store for BlackBerry smartphones, enabling customers to browse and download fun and functional mobile applications to their phone. Many applications are readily available directly on the smartphone, such as Slacker Radio for easy access to free music, TeleNav GPS Navigator for turn-by-turn directions, and visual voicemail for easier access and response to voicemails. A hot-swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot provides additional storage for multimedia files and archiving applications with a 2GB memory card included and support for 32GB cards when available.

T-Mobile’s rapidly expanding high-speed 3G network provides a fast and reliable connection that now covers 170 million people in more than 235 cities nationwide, and by the end of the year is planned to be available to approximately 200 million people across the U.S.

T-Mobile customers can continue to get great mobile coverage and unlimited nationwide Wi-Fi Calling with T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling service or, for business customers, the new Wi-Fi Calling with MobileOffice solution*.

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 with Wi-Fi Calling will be available from T-Mobile in time for the holiday season. Customers will be able to purchase at T-Mobile retail stores, select authorized dealers and online at http://www.T-Mobile.com.

Before retail availability, customers can learn more about the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone from T-Mobile at http://www.T-Mobile.com/Bold.

*Unlimited nationwide Wi-Fi Calling requires Unlimited HotSpot Calling mobile plan or Wi-Fi Calling with MobileOffice service, qualifying rate plan, broadband Internet connection and wireless router. Regular plan minutes are used when call does not originate on Wi-Fi network. For more information about Unlimited HotSpot Calling, visit http://www.T-MobileAtHome.com. myFaves only applies to calls directly between two people and allows unlimited nationwide calling to five U.S. numbers. Use of some device features may require a specific plan and incur separate, additional charges. See T-Mobile.com for rate plan information, charges for features, and services and other details.