Bell Mobility, Yahoo! Canada Launch Wireless Instant Messaging Service

Toronto-based Bell Mobility is continuing to beef up its wireless Internet offerings (see Bell Mobility Trials Location-Based Services). It has struck a deal with Yahoo! Canada to extend more online services to its Internet-enabled phones, including instant messaging service. Yahoo! Messenger is now available on Mobile Browser, a Bell Mobility service that enables users to wirelessly access the Internet from their Digital PCS phones. Subscribers can now use their Internet-ready phones to view which of their friends or colleagues are online and participate in real-time, text-based, online conversations.

In addition to Yahoo! Messenger, Bell Mobility is also adding My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Directory to its Mobile Browser service, enabling users to receive personalized Yahoo! Canada information and conduct Web searches by selecting Yahoo! Canada on their Internet-enabled Digital PCS phones.

My Yahoo! enables subscribers to wirelessly access customized content that they have previously organized on their Yahoo! Canada My Yahoo! page. This service provides fast and easy access to the information and services that are most relevant to the individual user.

Yahoo! Canada Directory acts as a wireless search engine, providing subscribers with access to additional web sites that have been optimized for viewing on wireless devices, using Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML). Yahoo! has extended its site-indexing capabilities to include hundreds of wireless-ready Web sites.

The new services are currently available only in English. French services will be available in Fall 2000. Mobile Browser is currently available on a number of digital PCS phones, including the NeoPoint 1000, Qualcomm's QCP-2700, QCP-2700F, and QCP-2760, and the Samsung SCH-3530.

Edited by Ellen Jensen