Rumor Mill: T-Mobile USA to announce 3G plans

According to a report in the Inquirer, T-Mobile USA will make a major announcement about its 3G network rollout on December 6. The news is a long time coming: We reported in December of 2005 [1] that T-Mobile USA would launch its 3G network by the end of 2006. Now it seems the carrier may make good on that promise--a year late.

Last October the carrier said it planned to spend nearly $2.7 billion on its 3G network rollout, which will make use of the $4.2 billion worth of spectrum it won in the AWS auction. T-Mobile International's CEO Rene Obermann said at the time [2]: "We're looking at the area of user generated content... where we could leverage or basically mobilize the trends which we can see on websites such as MySpace, YouTube or others... as well as data management scenarios and consumer mobile email. We want to leverage existing behavior... when it comes to mobile music and TV, I wouldn't consider them big revenue generators."

T-Mobile USA started selling its first 3G device [3] this past October in select retail stores in New York City: The Samsung T639, a quad-band GSM/EDGE and WCDMA 1700 MHz clamshell. It's about time that handset had a nationwide network.

For more on the rumor:
- read the Inquirer's speculative article [4]