Sprint said Tuesday it would be the first mobile carrier to sell the Palm Treo 700p, a smartphone that will carry the company’s fledgling TV service over its high-speed wireless network.

The phone, which Palm unveiled Monday, will run over Sprint’s EV-DO (short for evolution data optimized) broadband network and will fall back to the company’s lower-speed network, known as 1XRTT, in areas where the faster service isn’t available, said spokesperson Amy Schiska-Lombard.

As wireless networks grow faster and more robust, they are becoming more capable of running multimedia applications that can be used both by consumers and business users to access video and music from cell phones.

The phone supports streaming audio and video, including the Sirius radio and on-demand news services that are part of Sprint’s live TV service, which has over 50 channels of video and audio content.

The device also includes a 1.3-megapixel digital camera with video capability, a built-in MP3 player, and Bluetooth wireless capability. It also features a web browser, email capability, the standard Palm organizer capabilities, a PDF file viewer, and Documents to Go for accessing Microsoft Office documents.

Palm shares climbed $0.12 to $21.23 in recent trading, while shares of Sprint Nextel inched up $0.07 to $24.75.

Evolutionary Phone

Sprint is selling service for the phone at varying price levels of $15, $20, and $25 per month, depending on the network plan. The company will sell the phone at the end of May for about $650, but will deduct $100 from the price for customers who sign a one-year contract.

Customers who sign up for two years can get rebates that cut the price by $250 to about $400, said Ms. Schiska-Lombard.

Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at the research firm Current Analysis, sees the phone as an evolutionary, but not revolutionary, step for Sprint and Palm that will keep the Treo competitive.

“It’s not a huge advance for Sprint, although the ability to offer TV and consumer services on a smartphone is something that has been sorely lacking across the board for all the carriers,” he said.

He pointed out that while consumers could buy an EV-DO phone that offered streaming video and games, few smartphones for professionals and so-called prosumers offered entertainment applications.

“That’s certainly something IT managers don’t want, but it’s something prosumers want quite a bit,” said Mr. Greengart.

He points out that Palm is seeing greater competition from other smartphones, including new and upcoming models from Samsung, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Nokia.

While these companies are mostly targeting Research In Motion, Palm is going to feel some of the collateral damage. RIM may even decide to come out with a BlackBerry smartphone that offers entertainment features, he speculated, although that isn’t RIM’s traditional market.