Remember those days when you'd beg your mom to hop online and watch GamePro.com load for 15 minutes in order to read the latest reviews, only to be shut down by pops who refused to pay $.50 per minute to be on the world wide web? Thankfully, Sunrise's latest mobile broadband plans aren't that bad, but each precious hour of surfing over HSPA will set you back 3 Swiss francs (or $2.97). On the upside, there's no commitment attached to the USB modem, and there aren't any data usage caps either, so who knows, maybe this deal will float your boat after all.

[Thanks, Jay]

What's the first network to claim a true, full HSPA across all of the United Kingdom? Vodafone? Orange? 3? Nope -- try T-Mobile, which has just flipped the switch on its HSUPA upgrades nationwide to bring upload speeds to a blazing 1.4Mbps (theoretically, anyway). The figured they'd commemorate the occasion by giving download speeds a little boost, too, so those are now up to 7.2Mbps, making Great Britain an absolutely fabulous place to do a little mobile computing right now. Oh, and hey, T-Mobile USA, you could seriously learn a lesson or two from your counterparts across the Atlantic here.

[Via Tech Digest]

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!

Sliders with numeric keypads aren't exactly the most common form factor for Windows Mobile handsets to begin with, but throw in some HSUPA and you've got a very rare combo indeed. Samsung's SCH-M470 fits that most unusual bill, throwing in a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and WiFi -- not to say you'll necessarily need it while you're cruising along at the sickeningly fast speeds the HSPA specification originally intended. Unfortunately, this one won't find its way out of Korea, but the presence of HSUPA here is a good sign for smartphones of all creeds in the near term; 'course, if you happen to find yourself in Seoul, you'll be able to grab one for somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 won (about $616 to $718).

[Via Slashphone]

Just think -- this time next year, we'll all look back at this milestone and wonder how on Earth we thought it was impressive. For now, however, we wouldn't blame you for high-fiving everyone around, as NTT DoCoMo has stretched the boundaries again with a recent Super 3G field test. Reportedly, the outfit was able to record "a downlink transmission rate of 250Mbps over a high-speed wireless network in an outdoor test of an experimental Super 3G system," and while it's not quite the 300Mbps we'd heard about before, you won't find us kvetching. If all goes to plan, the firm is hoping to "complete development of the technologies required for the eventual launch of a Super 3G network" by 2009, but who knows how long we Americans will have to wait to indulge after that.

Check it data fans, AT&T just announced a pair of new HSUPA LaptopConnect cards from Option. The GT Ultra goes type II PCMCIA while the GT Ultra Express is, you guessed it, destined for ExpressCard34 slots. Both cards are tri-band UMTS/HSPA 850/1900/2100MHz and quad-band GPRS/EDGE capable for BroadbandConnect speeds of about 600Kbps to 1.4Mbps on the way down or 500Kbps to 800Kbps back up the tubes. Those bands should get your suit connected in some 140 countries spanning the US, Europe, Japan and Korea. The cards are Mac and PC compatible and will set you back $50 0$ (for a limited time starting tomorrow) plus a two year contract of at least $60 per month. After you mail-in the appropriate rebate forms of course... which you'll probably forget to do.

Kind of makes those New Years resolutions of yours seem a bit silly now, but AT&T has some high hopes for 2008. While it mulls its own 700MHz options and leaves the C block to the likes of Verizon, the company plans to build out its 3G network into 80 more cities, which boosts the number to 350 "leading" markets in the US, a rollout AT&T has been sluggish to compete with Verizon and Sprint on. AT&T also pledges to complete its HSUPA network by the middle of the year for speedier uploads. AT&T's not giving many specifics on its future network plans, just that existing infrastructure improvements pave the way for HSPA+ and LTE in the "years to come." Let's hope those years come fast, these HD downloads we keep hearing about are liable to set a few cell towers on fire by year's end.

The next step in the HTC Touch line -- the GPS-equipped Polaris -- has been re-christened the Touch Cruise, and has gone and gotten its juicy specs all leaked out to the internet. In addition to having improved TouchFlo capabilities, like rotation and zoom, the new model will sport a quad-band GSM radio (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900), tri-band UMTS (850 / 1900 / 2100), HSDPA and HSUPA data connectivity, a 400MHz MSM7200 Qualcomm CPU, 128MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, a 2.8-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display, 3-megapixel camera (plus secondary, 0.3-megapixel camera), WiFi, Bluetooth, and a microSD slot. Apparently, the design of the device hasn't been finalized, though it will likely feature four buttons and a navigation wheel (similar to the pics up above). Mouth watering? Eyes tearing up? We understand. The Cruise is expected by the end of November, so go easy on your credit cards till then.

Update: Thanks to CoolSmartPhone and Smart Mobile Gadgets, we've gotten a proper view of the Touch Cruise, and it's sweet!

Broadcom sure has been on a roll of late, introducing the feature-packed VideoCore III multimedia processor earlier this month and following it with the "world's first 3G phone on a chip" solution. The BCM21551 baseband chip was developed on a single, low-power 65-nanometer CMOS die and features Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, FM radio, an FM transmitter, support for up to five-megapixel cameras, 30fps TV out and "advanced multimedia processing." Notably, you won't find integrated WiFi or GPS, but it does play nice with HSUPA, HSDPA, WCDMA and EDGE cellular protocols. Best of all, this system-on-a-chip is available now to "early access customers," and the low, low $23 pricetag (when purchased in bulk, of course) is music to our ears.

No, seriously, how many global 3G bands do we need? We're still dealing with chipset and handset manufacturers hemming and hawing over adding 850 and 1900MHz for support in the Americas, for goodness' sake, and that's the least of our problems. T-Mobile's starting to light up little fragments of its 1700MHz spectrum (good luck getting Sony Ericsson to buy into that one, guys) while Europe may start to add UMTS 900 to supplement the 2100MHz networks that are currently deployed over in those parts. Alas, here comes Ericsson trotting out an array of 2.6GHz HSPA wares, suggesting that it gives carriers greater "cost efficiency" by tacking on to existing infrastructure. Norway, the UK, and Sweden have all announced plans for 2.6GHz auctions recently so Ericsson's announcement is indeed a timely one -- but still, talk about 3G band overload!

[Via PhoneMag]

Richard Burns, AT&T's president of wireless network services, has revealed some key stats and plans for the company's 3G network -- not a topic of much interest for iPhone owners, granted, but he says those folks think the EDGE experience is "great" anyway (whatever). The number of market areas covered by its HSDPA network should touch the 200 mark by the end of this year, and while AT&T won't succeed in upgrading its entire network to 3G by the end of 2008, Mr. Burns says that the build-out will continue throughout the year in order of data demand, which we take to mean that the most rural of rural areas are still going to be plumb out of luck here. Perhaps more interestingly, though, he revealed that the planned upgrade to HSUPA is well underway, with coverage going live in the next couple months. Of course, that means new data modems are gonna be necessary to take advantage, but if hosting a website from a park bench is a priority for you, it could very well be worth the cost of admission.