According to the overactive internet rumor party line, T-Mobile is planning to take its currently limited 3G service nationwide come October. TmoNews claims -- thanks to an anonymous tipster, of course -- that on October 1st, the telco will bring speedy service to 27 of its top markets, including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and Miami, amongst others. Of course, right now this is pure speculation and hearsay, until we get confirmation from T-Mobile (or at least some hard evidence), we'll just have to keep our fingers and toes crossed.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Just when we thought things were kosher between Starbucks, T-Mobile, and AT&T over the Wi-Fi switchover, it turns out that T-Mobile isn't so happy with how the deal is playing out. They claimed Starbucks secretly colluded with AT&T to offer free WiFi access and left T-Mobile in the lurch. The lawsuit, filed last week in New York state court, alleges that AT&T and Starbucks weren't sticking to the terms of the original agreement, which would have allowed T-Mobile customers to freely roam on the new AT&T service. Now, it seems, they've all entered into a "memorandum of understanding to resolve their disputes and are committed to providing a high quality WiFi experience for customers." So far, though, we don't know any details as to what this agreement will mean for T-Mobile WiFi subscribers, but we'll keep an eye on this.

T-Mobile's 3G network started going live today, and it looks like that early word from a company memo may not hold true for all users. Some markets may in fact have a silent soft-launch of faster data rates, we've heard from several tipsters who've said that they're already getting faster data service, and now the company itself getting the word out that it's launching data as well. But company peeps were indeed instructed to make sure customers don't count on that faster data being present; bottom line is you may have it, you may not (but if you take T-Mobile at its word, you should). NYC is the first market to light up, but others should come online soon -- anyone trying it out? How's it going? Hit us up in comments and let us know!

Our best friends at T-Mobile are getting set to roll out 3G in New York soon -- real soon, as was previously expected. New York will launch on May 1, to be exact, according to TmoNews.com. That's, like, tomorrow. The leaked document promises T-Mobile customers the "great call quality they've come to expect...and more network availability". The rest of the network will be rolled out in 2008 to 20 markets, including Los Angeles, Detroit, San Diego, Austin, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Miami, and several more. As TmoNews.com points out, New Jersey and Long Island are mysteriously off the list. View all the launch cities after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

The first Android devices were always scheduled to arrive later this year, and while we've already seen a couple prototypes and hacked ports floating around, it looks like T-Mobile is the first out of the gate to confirm that it'll have phones based on Google's mobile OS. Speaking at the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference, T-Mo's VP of broadband and new business division Joe Sims said he'd played with an early version of T-Mobile's first Android phone and that it would ship in the fourth quarter of this year. Sims said that although he was initially skeptical of Android, he's now "impressed," and that T-Mobile would eventually have "more than one" Android phone. Now, if someone would just let us know what this magical phone actually is, we'd be happy -- HTC Dream, anyone?

[Via IntoMobile]

Yesterday's surprising-but-not-shocking announcement that Starbucks would be switching to AT&T for WiFi services left a lot of T-Mobile customers in the lurch -- although Starbucks said that T-Mo and AT&T had an "agreement" that would let HotSpot users stay connected, there weren't a ton of details given. Well, it looks like you've got a few more years of caffeinated surfing ahead of you, guys -- T-Mobile issued a press release today saying it was committed to ensuring "minimum customer impact" during the transition, and that it's signed a five year "roaming agreement" with AT&T that will kick in when the Starbucks WiFi transition begins later this year. Of course, the ideal roaming agreement would let you use either company's networks wherever you are, not just AT&T bandwidth in Starbucks -- we'll totally spring for the coffee if these two companies want to meet and sort something like that out.

After a few days of investigation, it looks like Motorola and T-Mobile have figured what was behind that nasty Sidekick Slide bug that caused the devices to shut off when flipped open. According to our friends at Moto, the root cause was "a minor issue relating to the battery contacts," and a solution is being tested right now and should be available by next week, when Slides are expected to go back on sale at T-Mo stores. A speedy resolution, to be sure, but we're still amazed a bug like that got through in the first place.

The Gphone rumors have been heating up lately, and things seems like they're about to come to a boil. The Wall Street Journal, not generally known for wild rumor-mongering, is reporting that Google is in "advanced talks" with Verizon and Sprint and has made "significant progress" with T-Mobile, with an announcement of some kind due within two weeks. The news sent Google stock past $700 today, although it's still not clear if Google is simply developing its own software or going all out and doing an entire handset. Either way, it looks like Google's getting ready to make a move sometime soon, and with the amount of chatter we're hearing, it's going to be a big one.

T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home already brings WiFi VoIP to compatible cell phones, and the latest FCC filing from T-Mo and Linksys indicates that soon all the phones in your pad will be able to get in on the action: say hello to the WRTU54G. Apart from the T-Mobile branding and the two phone jacks on the back, the router features two user-accessible SIM card slots, which appear to be used to configure up to two phone lines -- we're not sure if they're VoIP or cell, however.

[Via TG Daily]

File this under extremely annoying. According to T-Mobile, all systems for re-upping users prepaid phone minutes (online, phone-based, and refill hotspots) are not only currently inoperable, but have not been functioning correctly for the past three days. As a result, no minutes can be added to customers phones, but T-Mobile says that users of its prepaid service can continue to make calls from their phone with no charge until at least 11 pm tonight, even if they have no minutes remaining. The company hopes to correct the problems they're having by this evening, and we'll bring you more info as it becomes available. In the meantime, use this freebie to catch up with grandma!

Update: Just to clarify, as far as we know this problem is affecting T-Mobile customers in the US. Also, the representative with whom we spoke said that calls would be free until 11 pm -- we have yet to hear an official announcement, however, so proceed with caution.

[Thanks, Eric]

Hiptop3 may have scored a coup if this document sent in by a reader turns out to be real. If you look closely, you'll see that the leaked doc is about the Sidekick Slide, AKA Motorola Q700, AKA the Sidekick 4. The photo apparently snapped yesterday by a T-Mobile Sidekick 3 (if you believe the EXIF data), shows a product finalization of August 27, 2007 with a "SK SLD" release sometime in "Late Q3." That would make the end of September the outer-most retail date. Of course, there are contradicting Q3 2008 dates above which seem to reference Sidekick L(X) and L(E) devices. In other words, we don't know. Now get your Photoshopping conspiracies ready and sound-off in the comments.

[Via Tech That Out]