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MobileTechNews: The GSM technology global coverage footprint has provided the foundation for UMTS/HSDPA to become the most widely deployed 3G technology, with 167 operators in 69 countries offering UMTS services, 115 of whom have enhanced service with HSDPA.

The GSM family of technologies currently provides service to 2.4 billion users worldwide, and comprises 85% of the total global wireless mobile market. GSM is the most widely deployed technology in the Western Hemisphere and the only technology present in every country of the region, encompassing 58% of all mobile wireless customers in the Western Hemisphere.

Worldwide, the greatest quarterly growth of UMTS/HSDPA took place in the US and Canada.

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Cellular News: The Portuguese telecoms regulator, Anacom has decided to open up the 900Mhz spectrum band to be used for 3G services. The regulator specifically has decided to abolish all technical constraints on how the GSM band is used, but does state that it expects this to be used explicitly for future UMTS services.

The new spectrum policy includes a sounding out of the market as to possible expressions of interest in the use of the part of the spectrum with frequency bands reserved for use by terrestrial mobile services (450 MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands), while maintaining a perspective of technological neutrality. (…)

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Heise: If you have an HSUPA end device, you can now take advantage of mobile data uploads with speeds up to 1.4 Mbit/s in Vienna. Mobilkom Austria says it is the first network operator in Europe to provide such fast uploads. HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) is part of UMTS specification release 6 and provides for uploads of up to 5.76 Mbits per second when running full blast. In addition, HSUPA also slightly foreshortens delays in downloads (HSDPA).

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Electronista: HTC’s once mysterious Athena smartphone has been released on T-Mobile in the Netherlands. Now called the Ameo, the smartphone is substantially upgraded from early specifications and features a 5-inch, 640×480 touchscreen as well as an 8GB hard drive to complement its miniSD card slot.

Also new is a 3-megapixel camera and an unusually quick 624MHz XScale processor. Bluetooth 2.0, GPS mapping, and Wi-Fi are equal components.

Battery life is long in spite of these features, with 5 hours of talk time and 300 hours when in standby. Exact availability outside of Europe remains unknown, but the presence of quad-band GSM support with both HSDPA and UMTS Internet access points to an eventual North American release, likely with T-Mobile’s American division.

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Gizmodo: We bandy about acronyms like EDGE, GSM, and EV-DO all the time when talking about cellphones and smartphones. We like to pride ourselves on the ability to explain what we’re talking about concisely for the newcomer while not going too slow for the veteran. Nevertheless, sometimes a UMTS slips by without explanation.

These can help you out:

• Acronyms Defined
• 3G Glossary

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We don’t read the Marie Claire very often. But something tells us white is the new black. First, there was the PSP. Now Sony Ericsson (yep, Sony again) will bring out a new device in Bright White: the K618.

Newlaunches: (…) a slim, lightweight 3G phone (…). The UMTS phone is equipped with a 2.0 Megapixel camera with 2.5x digital zoom and Mobile Blogger – an application allowing the user to post (or blog) their images directly to their own blogsite. A seperate VGA res camera is provided for video conferencing. The K618 features Bluetooth streaming which means that full-length music tracks (or video clips) can be sent wirelessly from the phone and listened to on a compatible Bluetooth device. The phone has Memory Stick Micro slot for memory expansion and comes with a 256MB stick.
The Sony Ericsson K618 will hit the markets in Q3. It will also be available in Vibrant Black. Read our lips: in a while black will be the new white.

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