Today I heard from a BB admin that the ATT corporate rep said AT&T has an HSDPA Pearl or Curve in their qualification testing lab getting ready for release. Apparently they plan to roll out 3G here in Silicon Valley and have a set of BBs that they're testing, I believe in conjunction with RIM.

The original rollout date was Jan/Feb 08. It's been pushed back to June/July 08 because of battery life. They're working on improving it now.

I'd be so stoked to tether at 3G speeds.

Yes, it does have simultaneous data and phone capabilities.

HSDPA is already available in the top 15-20 markets via ATT. And not to rain on your parade but all hearsay unfortunately. Only HSDPA bb exists overseas at the moment. 8707 and it doesnt work on the US 3g frequencies. A pearl with 3g would strictly be aweful, the batterly life already can be killed quite quickly if you really wanted to.

i also have a source that claims a 3g bb on at&t will be released june/july 08.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I have maybe heard such rumor.;)

But it is exactly that. No concrete proof as of yet

I think he meant at Qualcomm's offices in Silicon Valley. That would make sense, although Qualcomm's chips won't be in the upcoming 3G device from RIM. Marvell will be releasing the Tavor chipset with HSDPA and UMTS technologies. Perhaps this may be in coordination with Qualcomm at some point - obviously for licensing, I would imagine. Needless to say, Qual could mean Quality.

Hey, Jibi. Qual = qualification (which ensures quality).
My impression was that it was an AT&T lab, not a chip vendor's lab. It would make sense, however, to be doing "bringup" with the chipset's maker. Good point.

Ironically, AT&T's huge SilVal installation is right across the street from my office. I wonder what they're doing over there. Man, I'd like to have them as an account.

Their corporate HQs aren't too far from my office

...they don't do anything special there, though.

Eh! Is that where you get all your advanced information!? Dumpster diving!

;)

HAH! That was all in a past life, of course. Ahh, the good ole black hat fun times. Needless to say, my only contact with AT&T's corporate side are a) a former colleague is in charge of their DNS environment, and b) they used to have a very, VERY annoying BES Administrator woman who made sure everyone knew she worked for BellSouth (now AT&T). Did I mention she was annoying? Seriously, perhaps the most clueless BlackBerry administrator ever.

lol you read my mind. Jibi - I was also going to add that they make big decisions there .... the final "go ahead" to launch a new product/service ;) .

Seriously though, doesn't RIM do their inhouse quality testing with chipsets? I've seen numerous amount of jobs for electrical engineer, microprocessor programmer or whatever in the past few years. Unless of course that was back in the 7290 days of ol.

I love a good rumor as much as the next guy ... I just think we're all spoiled from seeing sneak peeks because of BGR.

Yeah, I'm sure RIM does do in-house testing.
I'm sure the carriers do testing as well before rolling out a device. They wouldn't be explicitly testing the chipsets, I don't think. But each network has its own peculiarities. Especially when it's a completely new protocol, like HSDPA. So they'd be testing the new network and how well the device interfaces with it.

just from a business standpoint, HSDPA isnt new to RIM. It is likely they have their own testers with the devices long before any carriers do. That would just make sense to me anyway

BATTERY

That's all I have to say about that.

That's been an issue with any and all 3G devices, or any device that uses above and beyond the resources it takes to function in the perfected world of GSM. This includes WiFi, UMTS, HSDPA, etc. Heck, even the whopper of a battery found in the iPhone cannot hold a charge more than an hour while on WiFi. Keep throwing in more resource needy functions like these chipsets, on top of bumping up the processor (even with the shrinking wafers), increasing the screen resolution, adding on this and that, and it's more than understandable that even a generation-better battery won't function as it did in the previous generation. Batteries have improved very little in the last decade. It has been the hardware manufacturers developing more powerful devices with less needy resources. What makes anyone think this would be an exception otherwise? They'll maybe have an improved battery during next generation and a built-in software workaround otherwise.

Im not sure about that. Im connected to wifi for 9 hours a day while at work on my iPhone and im messaging the whole time. Then I get home and it switches to my home wifi network and I still get at least a day with my battery. I could even hold out for two days but I dont want to chance it.

My pocketPC on wifi however is a completely different story. half a day...maybe...if i connect to it.

Honestly though, as long as this 3g bb battery lasts me a full day Im content. I charge my phone every night anyway.

just being connected to wifi doesnt drain the battery too terribly much, just like being connected to the mobile network doesnt drain the battery too terribly much. using that connection however is where the drain occurs. My 8800 connected to the ATT voice and EDGE network will last nearly a month if i dont use it, however using it moderately i have to charge it every 4 days

Exactly.
3G is going to kill battery life.

on a smaller device yes, slimline batteries in the pearl or curve will get eaten up, the extended life battery on the 8800 series would be more than sufficient. probably still get the 5hrs talk time and 2 weeks stand by lol

ha ha jibi you work close to the mobility hq not AT&T HQ. Which I happen to work at ;) hopefully have the 3g berry in hands soon well at least to check it out