While the much-anticipated, 'Wi-Fi-less' smartphone - the BlackBerry Tour - is scheduled for a Sunday arrival in Sprint and Verizon Wireless stores, both the carriers have made it clear that their forthcoming smartphones will all be Wi-Fi-enabled.

Going by FierceWireless reports, Sprint is likely to release BlackBerry Tour's Wi-Fi-enabled version next year. A company spokesman has further added that the carrier intends "embracing Wi-Fi in all its major devices going forward."

So far as Verizon is concerned, though it has not yet announced its plans of releasing a Wi-Fi version of the Tour in future; the carrier's representative informed FierceWireless that the company is "certainly working with RIM to be able to offer Wi-Fi on future BlackBerry smartphones."

Thus far, both Sprint and Verizon have a blotchy track record in terms of Wi-Fi. Specifically speaking, while the HTC Touch Diamond and the new Palm Pre on Sprint are both Wi-Fi-enabled, the BlackBerry Curve 8330 and the popular Palm Centro are Wifi-less. Even Verizon released the Wifi-lesss touchscreen BlackBerry Storm in fall last year.

Analyzing the reason behind Sprint and Verizon's seemingly lukewarm response to Wi-fi, Boy Genius Report underscores that the pricey manufacturing costs for CDMA handsets could be the reason; while MocoNews points at the common perception by carriers that to maneuver subscribers towards their own 3G data plans, third-party Wi
-Fi networks should be given a miss!