BoyGeniusReport says that T-Mobile USA is launching its UMTS service in Chicago as early as today. As of deadline, T-Mobile USA had not returned our calls to verify this news. Of course, the timing of this UMTS debut is interesting because the operator is launching HSUPA in the U.K. today, which promises uplink speeds of 1.5 Mbps.

T-Mobile is also aligning its messaging pricing to meet that of the other nationwide carriers. Beginning August 29, the operator is bumping up the price of its text and picture messaging from 15 cents per message to 20 cents per message.

For more:
- see this entry in BoyGeniusReport
- see this ZDNet story
- see this DSLReports story