T-Mobile will begin to roll out its new line of phones based on Mozilla's Firefox operating system when the Alcatel One Touch goes on sale in Poland sometime next week.
The European launch will come just two weeks after the new low-end/low-cost smartphone made its debut with Telefonia in Spain. The device is heavily based on HTML5 and Internet technologies from Mozilla. According to TechHive, applications for the phone are written in Web langugaes as opposed to the current practice of apps, which are typically written to be compiled for each smartphone platform. The hope from Firefox is if it promotes the openness of its operating system over the likes of Android or Nokia's Asha, or the rumored low end iPhone 5, it will be able to look like the most appealing smartphone on the low-end market.
The low-end smartphone market has been coveted by the industry lately as many users see no other option to remain current in the world without a smartphone. That means that the technology now has to find a way to adapt itself so that even the low-income users can gain access to the Internet and an application market.
T-Mobile will launch the Alcatel One Touch in Poland on Monday starting at 1 zloty ($0.30). It provided no tariff details but, in Spain Telefonica put another Firefox handset, the ZTE Open on sale for €69 (US$90).
According to the company, T-Mobile is hoping it can have phones on sale in Germany, Hungary and Greece by the end of this year. Beyond its two launch carriers, Mozilla has reportedly signed up at least 15 other mobile network operators to carry the Firefox OS handsets and put them on sale in the near future. Among these companies are: América Móvil, China Unicom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telenor, TMN and VimpelCom. These companies have yet to make any real statement as to their plans to launch a Firefox-powered low-cost smartphone.
