CTIA in brief: Nokia hints at its new U.S. strategy with T-Mobile deal

ORLANDO – Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) press event on Monday wasn’t exactly brimming over with new Symbian devices as its marketing materials implied, but Nokia did unveil a semi-new Symbian phone for the U.S. market as well as more carrier-friendly approach to selling its wares.

The Nokia Astound is essentially a repurposed version of its C7 handset (Nokia: Astound product page), a mid-range smartphone that sells globally, though the U.S. version will be upgraded with the latest Symbian^3 software release. Nokia has customized the device for its operator partner T-Mobile (NYSE:DT), something it’s been reluctant to do in the past. The Astound supports T-Mobile’s advanced wireless service (AWS) high-speed packet access (HSPA) band (though not HSPA+--T-Mobile won’t be calling this a 4G phone), and will even have T-Mobile branding, though Nokia won’t go so far as to drop its logo from the device like T-Mobile’s other suppliers.

Most significantly, though, Nokia seems to have sacrificed a little of its pride for the sake of the deal. Rather than go after the high-end market, which all U.S. operators have populated with pricey smartphones from other manufacturers, Nokia is willing to move into a lower-tier slot (The phone is priced at $80 after subsidy and rebate), filling in an empty niche in T-Mobile’s portfolio. If this may be the new way for Nokia--it’s certainly a far cry from trying to sell E-Series enterprise devices in market dominated by Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) and unfamiliar with the Symbian OS (CP: Nokia’s Symbian smartphone lands on AT&T’s network).

The next big obstacle for Nokia to overcome is the lack of any meaningful presence in the CDMA market, something new CEO Stephen Elop has promised to address, particularly as CDMA operators move to long-term evolution (LTE). Vice president and Nokia USA general manager Mark Slater, however, told Forbes that the vendor has no plans to make Symbian devices for CDMA operators. Instead, Nokia’s CDMA revival will come when it makes the transition next year to Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7, its future OS (CP: Nokia CEO says Microsoft deal will create dependency on both sides).