Sports

Ever been on the road and absolutely need to get the latest score for the Red Sox? There are a lot of ways that you can find this information using your mobile phone All of these services are provided through SMS or require you have a mobile browser with internet access, although we prefer SMS at this point because so few carriers offer fast connection speeds with their internet-based services.

4INFO

4INFO offers free sports scores, standings/rankings and text alerts for all major professional and collegiate sports. Player statistics are also available for most professional sports. Searches can be made via text messaging to shortcode 44636 (4INFO on the keypad) or by using the mobile web at http://wap.4INFO.net. Text Alerts can even be set to push messages at the end of a period, game or for every score change.

Sportsterminal.com

Unlike other services, this service actually pushes sports information to you via SMS. You have to register at their website, but this lets you personalize the teams that you want to follow and the service plan you want. Plans range from the Bronze, which allows you to track a single team and receive up to five updates each day for free, all the way to the Gold, which allows you to track 25 teams, 30 players, and news stories from six different leagues.

Mobile ESPN

Personalized stats, highlights and up to the minute scores. You've really got to be a hard core sports fan to go this route but if you are, you need the ESPN MVP phone kit. This phone costs $499 ($399 with mail-in rebate). Its loaded with features including camera, camcorder, high speed data access, removable memory and an MP3 player but most important of all, it has fantasy sports, scoreboard and ESPN's gamecast feature built into the phone. You can also access live sports videos directly on the phone. A must for the die hard sports fan!

ifbyphone

This service is a different twist on information retrieval. Once you've registered and set your preferences, simply call a number from your mobile phone and use the voice command, "Sports," to get spoken-word updates on your favorite teams. You also get other things, like customized news programming, blogs, stock quotes, and the ability to have your email read to you as part of the service. It's a great idea, but costly. Subscription plans start at $9.95 per month for the service and only get more expensive.

Synfonic

Synfonic offers similar sports information via SMS as many other services. Symphonic's number isn't as easy to remember as other services. To reach Synfonic, you've got send your message to 16504307183. Another drawback is that the service is only available to registered Synfonic users, which is free. On the plus side, the company lets you create a customize dictionary of shorthand through their website. This comes in handy for folks who use the service frequently.

Vindigo

Vindigo offers a rich set of information over your phone for the avid sports fan. Not only can you view the latest sports scores, but you can also view information about athletes and get a continuous feed of sports information. The vindigo service is distributed through all major wireless carriers and requires access through a mobile browser. Each carrier sets their own pricing. The vindigo website gives you step-by-step instructions on how to access the service from your phone.

Yahoo

Yahoo also offers a lot of rich sports information through their Mobile Web product. You can read news stories about your favorite teams and players, get sports updates from your personalized list of teams, check scores and updates from leagues such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL and more. The only drawback is that you'll need to use a mobile browser to access this information, which is painfully slow with most carriers.