Verizon's SMT5800 is HTC's S720. There are two external casings available from HTC for carriers for the S720, one that has the more "rounded" appearance of the original S710 Vox and one that has the more "rectangular" appearance. The more rounded version is offered by Bell, the more rectangular is offered by Qwest.

The HTC S710 is the original GSM version of the S720. As is HTC's typical pattern when designing a CDMA variant of an existing GSM phone, the CDMA version is upgraded in some manner, and then the upgrades are incorporated, and often expanded upon in a newer version of the GSM original, hence the S710, S720 and S730 (they do the exact same thing with the PPC/XV6800 which technilogically slots in between the original Titan/8525 and the newer Kaiser/Tilt/8925). Here, HTC's S710 was upgraded in processor to become the S720 (which is Verizon's SMT5800), while the S730 has the upgraded processor of the S730.

You are absolutely correct in this instance in that HTC's S720 was never built with WiFi, whereas the original S710 and the newly available S730 do have WiFi. There is no possible software fix or hack to get WiFi on the S720/SMT5800. There is/will be a hardware fix in that MicroSD WiFi cards will work on it that are currently being released.

The UTStarcom / HTC issue has already been addressed, but basically, UTStarcom is a distributor that sells to carriers, like Verizon. It is essentially a middleman between Verizon and HTC. UTStarcom does not manufacture the phones. HTC's initial niche was as a designer of phones for carriers that would carry the carriers own label. In the past few years, as HTC has become more desirous of branding, it has been more and more willing to deal directly with carriers.

Now, if someone would only please get some idea of release date from Verizon. PLEASE!!!

awl