Rumor: T-Mobile to Intro Google Android Phone with 3G Wireless Network

Rumor has it that T-Mobile (News - Alert) USA is planning to include a Google Android phone in its nationwide third-generation wireless network launch later this year.

 

According to IT writers who track developments in the world of blogging, T-Mobile is set to offer service in some 20-plus cities starting October 1.

 

“And the carrier plans to include the HTC (News - Alert) Dream smartphone as one of its first 3G phones to launch with the network, according to reports,” the bloggers say.

 

T-Mobile began offering 3G service in New York City in May. Company officials said then that they’d introduce the service in other markets by the end of the year. T-Mobile also has said it will be offering an Android handset later this year, which many believe will be the HTC Dream. But until now, the 3G network launch and the availability of the Android handset were not linked.

 

“Now the rumor mill is churning that T-Mobile will offer the new Android phone along with three others including, the Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) Z780, a high-end Samsung camera phone, and possibly the Motorola ZINE ZN5,” bloggers say.

 

The news follows reports last month that Google’s new “Android” mobile platform will be completely open-sourced under standard industry licenses.

 

According to the blog of principal systems developer Ed Burnette, a SAS (News - Alert) employee who keeps a blog that’s completely separate from his job, “the core platform components and libraries needed to port Android to new devices will be open sourced under commonly used, industry standard licenses, says Google.”

 

Burnette cites three Google sources that he met at the Internet giant’s annual I/O conference in San Francisco last month

 

“Except where noted, everything will use the Apache software license (ASL v2),” Burnette writes. “This is the same open source license used by projects like the Apache HTTP server, Tomcat, Harmony, and many other large projects in the open source community.”

 

According to Burnette, Google chose the Apache license so that original equipment manufacturers, application developers and carriers will be free to use whatever license they want when creating their own software.

 

“While Google encourages everyone to make their own code open if possible, it’s not required by the license,” according to Burnette. “Even Google plans to make a few of their applications closed-source, including their g-mail application. These programs are not part of the core Android system, even though they may be bundled with Android phones.”

 

The phones made headlines when Google unveiled them at a demonstration during the developers’ conference.

 

The device’s touch-screen display included a number of colorful icons that launched Web programs such as g-mail, or could notify a user of imminent appointments, reminders, notes and unread e-mail.

 

Google’s director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin – founder of Android, which Google bought three years ago – said some of the software’s features were shown for the first time at the conference.

 

Rubin emphasized that the Android software – widely seen as the lynchpin of the Google’s so-called “Open Handset Alliance,” a consortium of hardware, software and telecom companies that’s working on an open source mobile platform for developers – is secure.

 

“Many of the devices used today are based on 20-year-old platforms, when security wasn’t really thought about,” Rubin said, according to reports. “Starting from a clean slate has its advantages. This is a platform that will let the carriers to more innovative things.”

 

Industry insiders say that T-Mobile, a distant fourth place in the U.S. wireless market with about 29 million customers at the end of December, spent more than $4 billion to buy spectrum in the 2006 Advanced Wireless Service auction held by the Federal Communications Commission. The new spectrum more than doubled the company’s spectrum offering and finally gave it the necessary bandwidth to build a high-speed wireless network.