Call it a hunch, but you shouldn't have to wait too awfully long (like, hours / days / weeks) to secure Nokia's North American E71 today. Said handset is now available at the company's flagship store in Chicago, complete with a QWERTY keyboard and US-friendly 3G. Eager to grab one? Total cost will be $483 (plus tax) in addition to a roundtrip ticket to Chi-town, considering the store won't ship to out-of-towners (or so we hear).

[Via IntoMobile]

Rogers' new $30, 6GB data plan -- unveiled at the collective relief of virtually every would-be Canadian iPhone 3G owner -- is going to end up seeing duty outside the Apple realm. Canada's largest GSM carrier (and only GSM carrier of consequence, really) has mercifully decided to let all devices in its 3G smartphone range in on the $30 party, a range that includes winners like the Nokia N95, HTC TyTN, and Samsung Jack, among others. Good call, Rogers -- now let's just remove that limited-time offer label and make this a permanent part of your plan menu, shall we?

[Via MobileSyrup]

According to the overactive internet rumor party line, T-Mobile is planning to take its currently limited 3G service nationwide come October. TmoNews claims -- thanks to an anonymous tipster, of course -- that on October 1st, the telco will bring speedy service to 27 of its top markets, including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and Miami, amongst others. Of course, right now this is pure speculation and hearsay, until we get confirmation from T-Mobile (or at least some hard evidence), we'll just have to keep our fingers and toes crossed.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Only in the world of corporate law could two entities make amends in one continent while beating each other to a legal pulp in another. After three years of trading lawsuits over a handful of InterDigital patents regarding their applicability to the UMTS standard, Nokia and the firm have agreed to bury the hatchet with a settlement whose terms are undisclosed -- but only in the UK. The battle goes on in the US, where InterDigital still wants the ITC to put the smack down on Nokia's 3G products, which it claims are in violation of its intellectual property. InterDigital's stock got a nice little boost from the ordeal in the Isles, so it's apparently a Good Thing; maybe these guys want to take a seat at the negotiating table stateside, too?

[Via Phone Scoop]

As much fuss as we make about 3G, the impact it has on the mobile experience, and the death of old-school GSM as a viable technology, deployed WCDMA networks in their various forms are still just a drop in the bucket when compared to the GSM subscriber pool as a whole -- even in 3G-rich Europe. A new report from market research firm Informa Telecoms and Media reveals that European 3G users now number 101.5 million, which works out to about 11.1 percent of the some 910.8 million wireless users in the continent. Norway, Sweden, and Italy all individually broke 25 percent 3G penetration, but even so, that paints a very interesting picture of the overwhelming importance of the legacy infrastructure. With EDGE Evolution on the way, it could continue to play a majority role well into the next decade, too.

It looks like the folks at Samsung are keeping the fires burning with a batch of new handsets announced at the Singapore Telecommunications Exhibition. First on the block is the 3G, J800 Luxe slider, a mid-range phone with a 2.2-inch 176 x 200 display, two megapixel camera, FM tuner, A2DP support, and a slot for microSD cards. The electronics-maker is also offering the L700, a fairly unexciting candybar with a 2.1-inch screen, HSDPA, a choice of colors (pink, silver, and gold), and pretty much all the other features listed for the previous phone. The most interesting offering from this set is the Symbian-based L870 that we've seen previously, which the company claims is still on target for its August release. No word on pricing or release dates for the two new models, however.

[Thanks, Craig]

T-Mobile's still doing its darndest to keep its fragmented 3G network launch on the DL -- the carrier can't deliver a wide footprint just yet, and it look like it doesn't want to put customers under the false impression that it can. A great way to make sure no one cares about your high-speed handsets is to make sure they're all totally anonymous, low- to midrange devices with minimum shelf appeal, and what can we say, T-Mobile? Mission accomplished! PC Magazine has devoted some quality time to checking out all four of the 3G models currently offered -- the 3555 and 6263 from Nokia along with the t819 and t639 from Samsung -- and it looks like they've managed to develop a really potent power user repellent with the lineup. The 6263 scrapes by with the most generous review of the review, but even it is hampered by a lack of HSDPA (meaning 3G data's capped at a theoretical 384kbps) and a measly 1.3 megapixel camera. Clearly, T-Mobile wants these phones viewed in exactly the same light as the remainder of its consumer-class models, and we'll give 'em that much, they've done a bang-up job in that regard. Maybe too good, in fact.

Read - Nokia 3555
Read - Samsung t819
Read - Nokia 6263
Read - Samsung t639

See that image above? Yeah, that's a sexy new side angle of RIM's BlackBerry Bold, and it's coming to us courtesy of AT&T. Just as Sprint did with its fashionable Instinct, AT&T is launching a promotional site for the forthcoming BlackBerry in order to drum up interest and get you (re)informed. Straight from the carrier's mouth, we've got GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA support, integrated WiFi / GPS, 480 x 320 resolution display, a side-loaded memory slot, 1GB of built-in storage, a 624MHz CPU, 128MB of Flash memory, Bluetooth 2.0 with handsfree support and up to 5-hours of GSM talk time (13 days in standby). You'll notice that the operator makes no mention of an exact release date, but we're crossing our fingers and sticking to that leaked July timeframe until we hear otherwise.

[Thanks, Daryl]

It looks like AT&T is getting a bit more generous these days, with the company now following up its supposed plans to offer free WiFi to LaptopConnect and smartphone users with a promised 20% boost in 3G data speeds. That translates to "typical" downlink speeds of between 700 Kbps and 1.7 Mbps (up from 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps), and uplink speeds of between 500 Kbps and 1.2 Mbps (formerly 500 to 800 Kbps). To get those slightly improved speeds, however, you'll have to use one of the company's aforementioned LaptopConnect cards, and no doubt situate yourself in some prime signal real estate. What's more, AT&T says those speeds are only a taste of things to come, with it promising that peak data speeds will eventually reach 20 Mbps as it switches over to HSPA+ between 2009 and 2010.

[Via Gear Diary]

We knew good and well China Mobile was all geared up to launch its homegrown 3G standard in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (among other locales), and though China's government hasn't issued 3G licenses yet, TD-SCDMA has finally made its soft launch. In order to garner interest in the service, said carrier has also opened up "experience shops" in the aforementioned cities "to allow the public to experiment with TD-SCDMA handsets and gain confidence with TD-SCDMA's capabilities." During the initial launch, some 60,000 dual-mode TD-SCDMA / GSM handsets and 15,000 data cards will be on sale in these outlets, with most of the units being in the "mid- to high-end range" and costing between $286 and $572 (those are subsidized prices). Here is where we suppose China Mobile holds its breath and hopes for things to take off.

[Via mocoNews]

Truth be told, Fixed Mobile Convergence still isn't talked about much (comparatively speaking) 'round these parts. Yeah, we've seen a few FMC routers scattered about, but Vodafone's taking a stand by rolling out its Station in Italy. The box, which was developed in cooperation with Huawei, is an integrated switch / router with ADSL2+, WiFi, UMTS / HSPA (via a removable USB key) and four Ethernet ports. Essentially, it's designed to combine voice with fixed and mobile broadband services, and it enables users to make calls on their handset through a fixed line connection when they're kicking back at home. We're also hearing that the device will eventually make its way to other Vodafone markets, but there's been no word yet on future rollout dates.

[Via GigaOM]

Either Apple's getting leakier or the fakers are getting fake...ier, but the latest round of supposed 3G iPhone pictures is upon us courtesy of Dutch site iPhoneclub.nl and our old friend Mr. Blurrycam, and they're pretty convincing. You'll notice that they show a device almost identical to the one in the last set of images we saw, with a white back and three dots inside the earpiece. Of course, that's not to say some aspiring Photoshoppers haven't just been copying each other, but we're not here to kill your dreams, people. You'll just have to trust your friends for that. Hit the read link for the rest of the pics.

Update: Looks like we killed iPhoneclub's website, so check after the break for the other two shots, courtesy of Macfreak.nl.

This just in: don't believe anything you hear regarding an official 3G rollout date in China. After quite a bit of rigmarole, the Chinese government has finally announced that it will issue a trio of 3G licenses. Notably, the announcement comes with a bit of baggage -- it's also calling for a merger between China Unicom and Netcom, two of its four biggest telecommunications providers. Furthermore, it stated that it would call on China Telecom, the nation's largest fixed-line carrier, to "purchase Unicom's CDMA network," all leading to a massive shuffle that should position three of the nation's telecom juggernauts to eventually offer high-speed wireless to a staggering 1.3 billion people. Unfortunately (though not unexpectedly), there's no time frame given for implementation, but some analysts are asserting that "a full launch of 3G services is [still] years away." Baby steps are better than no steps, we reckon.

[Thanks, James]

Around these parts, mention "3G" and you'll get an earful of the latest speculation on just when Apple's retooled iPhone will be making its first official appearance. Mention the same in North Korea, though, and you're likely to get some curious glances. Until just a few months ago, the simple act of making a mobile call within the nation's borders was a crime punishable by public execution. Via hanging. Seriously. With the ban dropped, Orascom Telecom, the only such company to be allowed to open up shop there, has completed its first 3G call. The Egyptian-based carrier is still setting up its nation-wide network, with hopes of going live coast-to-coast by the end of the year. Take that, China.

[Via IntoMobile]

AT&T has announced that it's now just six 3G markets away from completing its upgrade to HSPA, a technology representing the holy matrimony of HSDPA for blazing downlink speeds and HSUPA on the uplink. Of course, HSDPA has now been fully deployed in AT&T's 3G footprint for some time, but HSUPA's still a fairly recent initiative for them -- good hustle for a company more accustomed to a relatively glacial upgrade pace. Even better, the remaining six markets are apparently just a month or so away, at which point about 275 US markets will offer the good stuff, and another 75 or so will be coming online by the end of the year. 'Fraid there's no opportunity to relax and take a load off, though, AT&T; it's time for LTE. Come on, get to it!