Earlier today I learned via Daily Wireless that Cingular will be deploying their 3G (UMTS) network on a number of U.S. cities by Q4 2005 and early 2006! That is just around the corner… Cool! Cingular had announced back in 2004 their plans to deploy UMTS. I am excited because Austin is in the list of initial cities to get UMTS.

	"They don’t specifically differentiate between UMTS and HSDPA zones,
	but residents of Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore,
	Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, SLC, San Diego,
	San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Tacoma can expect a November 1st launch.

	Expect at least average download data speeds of 220-320 kbps".

Time to upgrade! Maybe.

For a long time I have been patiently waiting for a true killer handset/network combination for personal use, and it seems the time has come. It is time to upgrade my old but dependable Treo 300 phone+PDA, and I like the new Sony Ericsson P990 which seems like a very, very cool multi-functional handset.

Cingular's UMTS webpage talks about their network's ease of use:

	Laptops can be connected to the Cingular UMTS network with a UMTS-compatible
	PC Card modem or handset. UMTS-compatible handsets allow mobile professionals
	to talk and respond to email at the same time, from the same device. Handsets
	can be connected to a laptop using USB cable, Infrared or Bluetooth.

So far so good. Looking at this a bit closer, I wonder about how accessible all this will really be? At “$79.99 Unlimited Mobile Internet Data Plan”, the service is not cheap. And the cool handsets such as the Sony Ericsson P990 are not available in the U.S. that I know of, and I don't know when they will.

As a new technology, there will be interoperability issues. The Cingular's UMTS webpage mentions UMTS service vs. EDGE and GSM/GPRS interoperability disclaimers:

	UMTS phones do not support EDGE, but work on the GPRS network at
	GPRS speeds. When moving between UMTS and GSM/GPRS coverage areas,
	your voice calls may drop and you will need to restart your data
	session. To place a call (including a call to 911) while web
	browsing on a UMTS handset, you must first leave your data session.

Dropped calls and sessions must be terminated and restarted? No always-on? Oh well, I guess that is the price we pay for early adoption. Bring it on, it is time to upgrade and move on to the next generation networks…

ceo