It’s been a busy week for T-Mobile. After refusing to comment to PhoneNews.com on T-Mobile testing 1900 MHz UMTS service in select markets, a direct effort to support unlocked iPhones, the carrier has made more depressing internal moves.

It appears that the carrier has aborted plans to offer 3G on 1900 MHz, as the carrier earlier this month began instructing customer service to suggest iPhone users on the network upgrade to a 4G Android smartphone, compatible with their network frequencies. T-Mobile offered customer support representatives a series of talking points on why iPhone is limited to 2G, or EDGE speeds on the T-Mobile network.

While it is possible that these are simply two different hands of a company not talking to one another, the timeline does indicate that T-Mobile wants iPhone off its network, rather than embrace the 1900 MHz band for UMTS. With no possibility of an AT&T merger, the carrier has to decide to use 1900 MHz for UMTS, or save it for LTE.

The carrier also has to decide when to wind down its GSM/EDGE services, which would leave iPhone customers in the dark. Other handsets that are GSM-only could be upgraded for free with UMTS handsets at marginal cost to T-Mobile. AT&T had to undergo the same effort when it wound down its TDMA and AMPS networks, and will likely have to do the same with GSM in order to re-use the spectrum.

Following criticism from many, T-Mobile does now appear to be pulling at least a temporary about-face with the public. The carrier has published memos internally, confirmed by PhoneNews.com, that they will begin to provide basic technical support for iPhone on the T-Mobile network.

Support will be limited to basic compatibility configuration, the T-Mobile APN (needed to enable data services), as well as T-Mobile’s email and MMS gateways.

In addition, T-Mobile will also provide support for iPhone usage and navigation, but only at a basic level. Services like the App Store and iTunes or iPod will not be supported, T-Mobile representatives are directed to tell customers to contact Apple for further technical support.

T-Mobile is the only of the major four carriers to not carry an iPhone currently. This partially stemmed from AT&T’s intention to purchase/merge with T-Mobile, and T-Mobile refusing to pay Apple’s higher device subsidies. T-Mobile executives have commented that the next iPhone will support T-Mobile’s network, prompting T-Mobile public relations to perform damage control, having announced an Apple product prior to Apple confirming it.

Polaroid has introduced its first Android powered smartphone with a full point and shoot assembly in the SC1630. While the SC1630 resembles a typical Android smartphone, a closer look reveals that it is actually a rebranded and re-engineered version of the Chinese Aigo A8 sold by China Unicom in that country.

The SC1630 as developed by Polaroid features a 16 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom, LED flash, a 3.2 inch touchscreen display on the back of the device at WVGA resolution and dedicated control buttons on the top for the camera shutter and volume rockers as well as a microSD slot and Bluetooth.

The device also features Android Gingerbread with full Google Apps and Android Market support along with AT&T/international 3G support for cellular data along with Wi-Fi and FM radio. The device does feature a mic for phone calls, suggesting that the device may be sold via  as well as unlocked directly by Polaroid depending on interest along with the possibility of an LTE version.

The SC1630 also features built-in dedicated camera apps for photo and video capture with cropping, red-eye removal, resizing and color correction. The device is being touted as a hybrid between a smartphone, media player and digital camera. The actual camera assembly consists of an F3.1 – F5.6 aperture lens assembly, 3X optical zoom, 5X digital zoom, a max shutter speed of 1/1400 and ISO max of 3200 with geotagging, anti-shake support and 720p video capture.

Representatives from Polaroid have also confirmed during CES that the company intends to sell the phone for $299.99 beginning in April and the release window hinges upon completion of final development work before then.

I’ve posted a few brief comments on Steve’s passing on my personal blog…

It’s not 100% clear yet if all iPhone 4S variants will have CDMA hardware inside, but Apple has made one thing clear; if you purchase an iPhone 4S from AT&T, a GSM/UMTS carrier, or an unlocked version, you won’t be able to use it on CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon.

Many sites, including a few of our competitors, were unsure why Apple made this move. Thankfully, we have the answers.

Presuming all iPhone 4S variants have the necessary CDMA hardware, we explore the history, and answer why, you cannot activate that CDMA radio on a GSM carrier. And, we’ll also tackle the difficult questions for CDMA customers of roaming on GSM that iPhone 4S has raised.

And yes, there’s a history lesson involved.

First, a primer. CDMA is the abbreviation for Code Division Multiple Access, and its more modern version, CDMA2000, which is the network that Sprint, Verizon, MetroPCS, Leap/Cricket, and others use today as their primary network. GSM/UMTS are the (2G/3G, respectively) networks that T-Mobile and AT&T use.

GSM/UMTS is primarily used in Europe and much of Asia. CDMA is the predominant network in the Americas, and portions of Europe. While CDMA does not have a technical future, its diminishing cost has driven it to developing nations, while GSM/UMTS are migrating to the newer LTE technology. As such, Sprint and Verizon will also eventually be using LTE as their primary networks.

Up until now, there have been practically zero phones that operated on both CDMA, and GSM/UMTS, in the same country. There are a plethora of international devices however that operate on the frequencies used abroad, as well as networks locally. Even when devices supported both CDMA 3G and GSM 2G, they rarely have supported the U.S. GSM, UMTS, and CDMA frequencies at once.

Much of this has been at the behest of US carriers. Regulatory concerns crop up once CDMA and GSM carriers can interact with one-another. Specifically, each and every carrier fears that the FCC may begin to mandate that the carriers act homogeneously. If the carriers can claim technical barriers to that, then they can stave off FCC mandates regarding roaming, interoperability, unlocking of devices, stolen device databases, and… well, we’ll end the run-on sentence there.

This makes iPhone 4S a bit of a game changer. Technologically, there’s nothing stopping a Sprint or Verizon customer from accessing AT&T’s “4G” GSM/UMTS/HSPA+ network. They could also theoretically access T-Mobile’s 2G GSM network.

However, they can’t. The reason is aforementioned paragraph regarding why the carriers have not wanted this innovation; they don’t want all the carriers being interoperable, as it opens the door to regulation. As such, none of the roaming agreements are in-place to allow for Sprint and Verizon customers to fall back to GSM/UMTS/HSPA, nor is there a roaming agreement for AT&T or T-Mobile customers to hop on Sprint and Verizon.

Now we start to see how this situation came about. Of course, if your iPhone is locked to AT&T, activating on Sprint or Verizon is not going to happen, so Apple simply disabled CDMA at the firmware level.

GSM carriers have abhorred the more-robust CDMA2000, some in Europe even made it illegal to deploy such a network in many areas through regulation and “discretionary mandates”. As such, international roaming in places like Brazil, Mexico, and elsewhere, cannot happen on the GSM side of things.

Apple, out of care to the carriers that are their largest customers, simply is disabling the CDMA portion of the device when initially activated on a GSM/UMTS carrier. This prevents all of these questions, and calls for comprehensive roaming agreements to occur.

It also prevents people from scamming AT&T out of a $400 subsidy, and then running the device right over to MetroPCS or Cricket.

The next question that then comes to mind is why you cannot take a device from Sprint to Verizon, and vice-versa. CDMA, unlike GSM, does not have firm subsidy locks… instead using an antiquated Master Subsidy Lock code system. As such, the risk of people ripping off a carrier is high. Customers have already hijacked “frozen” Verizon iPhone 4 devices and activated them on MetroPCS and other regional carriers, in areas where the devices are compatible (part of MetroPCS’s coverage uses the 1700 MHz frequency, which iPhone does not support currently on CDMA bands).

As such, Apple is again helping the carriers. While Apple cannot (totally) stop jailbreaking, they can ensure that unlocked versions of iPhone 4S are limited to the carriers that have openly accepted unlocked devices with open arms (AT&T, T-Mobile, and the MVNOs that operate on those networks).

Sprint has agreed, years ago, in a settlement to unlock and accept unlocked devices, but the attorneys that took their multi-million dollar payoff have never forced Sprint to enforce the latter part of the settlement. No attorney to date has filed the simple action needed to enforce this settlement. Verizon claims to accept unlocked devices through a similar settlement, but only supports a list of antiquated devices that can be hacked with a common tool — and will not activate a Sprint iPhone 4S, even if the subsidy has been fully paid.

In sum, most of the rules of CDMA vs GSM that Apple has laid out are of their own making, designed to appease the carriers that flagship their devices. The rules are born out of a history of antiquated technological boundaries that are no longer valid. It will be left to consumers to demand that things change.

Earlier today, T-Mobile sent out a statement to the press regarding the specifications for the recently launched LG G2X Android smartphone. The smartphone as listed on T-Mobile’s website claims support for 3G on the 850 and 1900MHz bands used by AT&T as well as its current 1700MHz AWS and 2100MHz bands for international roaming, leading many to speculate that the G2X would be one of the first T-Mobile phones to transition to AT&T’s network pending the completion of the merger. The above speculation has now been clarified in the following statement:

The T-Mobile G2x fact sheet, attached [PDF link], contains accurate information. The T-Mobile website is incorrect and we’re working to correct it. The G2x supports 850/900/1800/1900 MHz for 2G/GPRS only, and supports 3G/4G UMTS/HSPA+ bands I (2100) and IV (1700). The G2x does not support AT&T’s 3G bands. This banding is hardware based.

The GSM Association, the group that represents all of the carriers and vendors that are involved with providing products and services based on the standard has announced that many carriers and manufacturers will work together to make NFC products and services interoperable with many international services. The trade association has also announced that it will work to develop a set of certification and testing standards to ensure interoperability.

Carriers that have committed to the interoperability of NFC include Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti, China Unicom, KT Corporation, MTS, Orange, Qtel Group, SK Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telekom Austria Group, and Telenor.

Closer to the US, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have formed the ISIS mobile payment venture with the Nexus S being the first NFC capable smartphone in the country currently available on T-Mobile as Android Gingerbread includes support for NFC hardware.

Peek has released a beta of their first major firmware update.

Because the Peek was designed to be built cheaply (selling for as low as $20 on a no contract service plan), the device lacks common features in modern devices such as firmware over the air. It also doesn’t ship with a computer cable.

So, how is the device updated? Peek wants you to buy the upgrade cable, and then do the upgrade yourself. Peek owners might look at it and try to use a microUSB cable. Unfortunately, standard microUSB cables won’t work.

While Peek bears a microUSB port, it actually isn’t to USB specification. Indeed, the port is actually just a serial port with microUSB port shape. This makes it great for charging on the cheap, not so great for upgrading.

So, to upgrade, you have to buy a $17.99 cable from Peek to update the device.

Peek says that the update is worth the one-time payment, and that they will release future updates as more people adopt the cable. The 01.10 beta update offers a rewritten user interface, network performance improvements, and upgraded email viewer.

Peek Version 01.10.00 Upgrade

Opera has announced that Apple has in fact approved Opera Mini for the iPhone, with the app now available in the App Store.

This follows Opera’s novel PR campaign to predict how long it would take Apple to approve or reject the browser, since Apple has previously rejected browser apps on the basis that they emulate functionality already found in its Mobile Safari browser.

This is especially good news for first generation iPhone owners, as they will be able to use an alternative browser better suited to EDGE data access, since Opera Mini uses server side compression to deliver web pages, considerably speeding up page delivery by removing unecessary elements that slow down page rendering on the device.

SIM card manufacturer Sagem Orga has announced a partnership with Spanish wireless carrier Telefonica that will introduce the first SIM card with a built-in Wi-Fi radio and its own software which Sagem Orgacalls SIMFi.

The software and card are built to act as a Wi-Fi router, slinging data from the host device to other devices with Wi-Fi radios, much like Novatel’s MiFi, without the need for a dedicated device or additional phone programming. The SIMFi will be unveiled during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Roaming service provider Truphone has announced immediate availability of its “Local Anywhere” SIM-based international roaming service.

The service functions by purchasing a SIM card and choosing between three roaming rate plans, currently between the US and United Kingdom, with more countries being added later this year.

Two of the packages also include a local phone number for use in the UK when roaming in country, which allows for much cheaper local rates when using voice, data or messaging compared to international roaming rates provided by domestic carriers, with competitive roaming rates when traveling across the wider European mainland.

Google held their long-awaited Android Press Event at their campus in Mountain View earlier this morning, here are the important details regarding the announcement:

• Google confirms previously leaked hardware specifications with the caveat that applications can only be installed on flash memory for the time being.
• Custom engraving is available as an option on the lower rear bezel
• The device is running Android 2.1 which features support for active wallpapers and a new 3D framework along with applications currently only found on the Motorola Droid (Maps with Navigation, Search by Voice, Voice Command)
• The new application launcher now consists of icons in a virtual scrollwheel instead of pull down menus
• A new Gallery application which sets photos on a 3D plane and supports the accelerometer for tilting photos to simulate depth as well as automatic sync to Picasa
• Google Earth for Android will debut on the Nexus One with full 3D support
• Google has classed the Nexus One into its own self appointed category which it calls “superphones”
• Google debuts web store with service available from T-Mobile beginning today. Verizon Wireless will provide support for a CDMA version later this Spring.
• Google will officially test market sales to the UK and Singapore through the US webstore with the goal to expand to more carriers and countries
• Google confirms release of Android 2.1 to developers in two days time
• Google confirms Wi-Fi tethering will not be disabled
• Google also confirms Droid Eris is multitouch capable and considering an update to enable it