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]

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]

derStandard, the same publication that announced that the iPhone would be sailing into Austria via T-Mobile is now reporting that the same carrier will be testing the 3G iPhone in the aforesaid country. During a press conference in Vienna, T-Mo Austria reportedly affirmed that a UMTS version of Apple's handset would "soon be available," and that Austria would be the "testing ground" for the new mobile -- not to mention "among the first countries in the world with the UMTS iPhone." Furthermore, bigwigs stated that "more flexible" offers would be made available, but details beyond that were scant.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Great news, T-Mobile USA fans -- the roller coaster ride is finally over. After we thought T-Mobile's 3G network was but moments away from launching, we soon found that data may be left out. Oddly enough, a few reports hailing from the Big Apple claimed that data actually was included. At long last, the carrier is coming clean and announcing its official 3G rollout in the States. Unfortunately, the UMTS / HSDPA network is initially launching in New York City alone, but the good news is that data will be included and the operator expects the high-speed data network to "be available in cities where a majority of its subscribers currently use data services" by the year's end. Yeah, it's safe to celebrate now, we promise it's not a(nother) false alarm. Full release posted after the jump.

Oh, come on, Qualcomm, show a little emotion; shed a tear or something! After some two years of planning and urging legacy customers to migrate, Australia's Telstra has flipped a big, red, scary-looking switch somewhere, sending its CDMA network into darkness, never to return. The move effectively obsoletes roughly 3,500 CDMA sites around the country along with what the carrier bills as "redundant equipment" -- a nice little cost savings, no doubt, not to mention the freeing of significant chunks of spectrum for more advanced services. As you might have guessed, Telstra is jumping through these hoops to get customers onto its Next G-branded UMTS network, mirroring a widespread trend away from CDMA-based technologies and toward the GSM roadmap. Globally, it seems like CDMA2000 has years of life left -- but without a shred of major carrier support for the 4G path, its glory days may be numbered.

[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]

We don't typically report on Verizon launching EV-DO in some random market here or AT&T launching HSDPA in some other random market over there, but we figured this was a story worth picking up on. AT&T has now launched its 3G network services on the beautiful island of Oahu, striking down just one more reason why any human being might consider not living (or visiting) there. Then again, it could be argued that tropical islands should have as little connectivity as possible, so this may end up being more of a curse than a blessing after all. Bottom line: we might recommend "forgetting" your GT Max at home if you're trying to relax, k?

Just about a year after its initial, extremely limited rollout in Ontario and a few months of soft launching across the lands, Rogers has announced that the switch has now officially been flipped on its HSPA hardware in a solid 22 Canadian markets. Cities fortunate enough to make the cut include Vancouver, Winnipeg, Regina, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City among a smattering of others. The carrier's official branding for its 3G services is "Vision" -- a curious homage to Sprint's EV-DO network in the US -- though Rogers gets the crown for the cool factor here thanks to its true video calling capability, the only carrier in North America to offer the feature (ahem, AT&T?). Given the fact that Rogers is careful to call the network "HSPA" (as opposed to "HSDPA") we imagine high-speed uploads are in the cards, too. Bonus!

[Via the::unwired]

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]

In a move to standardize two of the largest networks in the world, Vodafone and Verizon Wireless have announced that both carriers will move to LTE (Long Term Evolution) for its next-gen networks. Verizon currently uses CDMA technology for voice and mostly EV-DO for data in both Rev. 0 and Rev. A flavors. LTE is the progression path for UMTS carriers like Vodafone -- who coincidentally was looking at WiMAX last month -- to fourth generation networks. LTE will run on an entirely IP based network and has data speeds up to 100Mbps download and 50Mbps upload. What's Verizon's next move, bringing in executives from Vodafone?

In much of Europe, 3G data is traditionally as expensive as it is plentiful -- a safe haven of wireless email for businessfolk with a corporate card, yes, but that's about it. T-Mobile UK, for example, charges £29 (about $57) for its cheapest unlimited laptop data plan, likely keeping it out of reach of a good fraction of the otherwise interested masses. 3 may be changing the game next month, though, on rumors that it'll roll out a handful of data plans significantly cheaper than its closest competition. Monthly plans of £10 for 1GB, £15 for 3GB, and £25 for 7GB (about $20, $30, and $50, respectively) are said to be in the cards, taking advantage of HSDPA's generous (and now largely underused) capacity. Even better, 3 will allow subscribers to tether their handsets at these rates or pick up a modem; it's not known how much the modem will cost, but a nice, round "naught" is getting tossed around as a possibility for existing customers. All things considered, it looks like carriers are poised to take a different approach to recouping their 3G investments -- popularity over high price -- and we'd say that's a good thing.

[Via GigaOM]

In a move that may be making others scratch their head in confusion, Vodafone has decided to join the WiMAX Forum as a principle member despite the natural progression from UMTS to other 4G technologies. To many, WiMAX is the next-generation mobile technology offering robust data speeds for CDMA network providers such as Sprint. For Vodafone and many others, though, LTE -- Long Term Evolution -- is the roadmap towards 4G bliss, but a few bumps in the road like delays in ratifying standards might've caused the Verizon Wireless co-parent to look elsewhere for some next gen love.

Well don't that look nice? Meet the supposed HTC Omni communicator... rendering. Unwired View is the source of these pictures and some more detailed specs. Notably, it'll be sporting VGA and TV-outputs along with that biggie 4-inch, 800 x 480 pixel WVGA display when launched in October. You know, if true. It'll also be packing a GPS/A-GPS nugget in a 130 x 81 x 16-mm slab making it a bit smaller than an Advantage but bigger than the phone-that-shall-not-be-named. Hey, that's what they're saying. Rounding things out are UMTS/HSDPA and WinMo 6 like we heard before. Though honestly, we never tire of hearing it.

We're still bellyaching over T-Mobile's unfortunate (but necessary) addition of 1700MHz to the world's WCDMA spectrum, but it seems four bands of UMTS -- 850, 1700, 1900, and 2100MHz -- wasn't enough to satisfy everyone's needs. Or the Isle of Man's, at least. The British territory is the first landmass in the world to get a trial UMTS / WCDMA deployment on the 900MHz band, thanks to Alcatel-Lucent and O2's Manx Telecom. Though there's already a 2100MHz 3G network alive and well in those parts, the companies are touting 900's advantages -- chiefly its increased building penetration and enhanced range, letting carriers get 3G to more places with fewer cells. Though the trial has run for a full six months, there appear to be no plans to make it live and accessible to customers at the moment; that's probably just as well, seeing how there's no retail equipment to take advantage.

So we've been sitting on this whole E90 controversy for a few days here, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Fact is, a part of us is hoping that we can will an HSDPA 850 / 1700 / 1900-sporting Nokia E90 into existence, but we shouldn't have to; the need for firms like Nokia and Sony Ericsson to wake up and spend the extra few bucks to shove global 3G radios into every last one of their phones is painfully obvious. Anyway, numerous readers have pointed out that the document in the E90's FCC filing referencing WCDMA on the 850, 1700, and 1900MHz bands is merely pointing out (for no good reason, may we add) the FCC's own radiation limits on those bands, and is probably not indicative of what bands are present within any particular device. We personally wouldn't think the FCC needs to be reminded of those limits in a test report, but perhaps we'll let the technicians be technicians here and we'll stick to our writin' gig. If y'all hear any good news about Nokia coming to its senses on this one, please be pals and pass on the good news -- but in the meantime, we'll go back to our 3G bellyaching.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]