According to eWeek, T-Mobile is going to announce UMTS in New York on 10/6. The conference event has not been confirmed, but this announcement is imminent since T-Mobile is lacking other major mobile carriers in rolling out 3G in the US. Currently, GPRS/EDGE data is being offered, running on the average of 50-150kbps with EDGE and less than 50kbps with GPRS. Remember T-Mobile got the top spot in the recent FCC radio spectrum auction, successfully bidding 4.2 billion dollars for over 100 licenses. Sources say they will implement UMTS with the 1700 and 2100MHz frequency, which will be different from other countries.

That basically means we will need new devices to take advantage of T-mobile UMTS as well as devices that would support multi-frequencies to enable users to roam across countries using the same global 3G standard. It will take T-mobile around 18 months to implement this nationally. So don't hold your breath. Just take advantage of the low monthly fee on the T-Mobile EDGE data plan. At the moment, you can get a $29.99 per month unlimited EDGE data with T-Mobile HotSpot access. You can use it on your laptop, providing you have the right setup/equipment. For those of you who had data access with T-Mobile back in the GPRS time, you should only be paying $19.99 per month, without HotSpot access, of course. Cingular charges $39.99 per month for EDGE speed, no HotSpot access, and probably no laptop access neither. Sprint charges $39.99 with no HotSpot access, but at EVDO speed and with laptop access. Verizon Wireless charges $44.99 per month just for PDA access, without HotSpot roaming, but at EVDO speed. We can only speculate how much T-Mobile will charge when they roll UMTS out in around 1-2 years.

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