T-Mobile USA has launched its 3G wireless network in New York City today. Other major markets will get 3G coverage later in the year. The service is currently restricted to four models, Nokia’s 3555 and 6263, and Samsung’s t819 and t639. These phones allow Web browsing and downloading at speeds twice that of non-3G T-Mobile phones. Later this year T-Mobile will launch handsets that are four times as fast as non-3G models. The future releases will utilize High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which allows speeds of around 600 kilobits per second.

BlackBerry smart phones with HSDPA won’t be available until next year, said Neville Ray, senior vice president of engineering and operations at T-Mobile USA.

T-Mobile’s network isn’t compatible with other HSDPA phones because T-Mobile’s spectrum in the United States differs from phones sold by AT&T and overseas manufactures. T-Mobile bought its licenses in a 2006 government auction but has had to wait before getting the 3G network up and running. Much of the spectrum it bought was being used by defense and law enforcement and it has taken time for these entities to give-up the airwaves.

“It’s been a tough road, but they’ve been very cooperative in recent months,” said Ray. The speed of the rollout of 3G to other cities is now more dependent on how fast the company can get new equipment up and running, he added.

AdMob released a report today that tracks traffic percentages for Smartphones, trend data for the top five country markets and manufacturer market share trends. For every advertising request AdMob received in the month of February, AdMob analyzed information available in the user’s mobile browser.

AdMob’s report includes percentages of Smartphone traffic worldwide. The statistics culminated in data pulled from the following company’s Smartphones: RIM, Nokia, Palm, Apple, HTC, HP, MITAC, Samsung, T-Mobile, Motorola and others. According to AdMob’s data, RIM’s BlackBerry 8100 Smartphone has the greatest percentage of worldwide traffic with 34% of Smartphone traffic share. Nokia’s Smartphones followed in second with 29% share of the traffic and Motorola’s Smartphones came in last with 1% traffic share. In the United States, iPhone traffic flattened slightly during the month of February, consistent with the theory that people use new devices a great deal in January, only to have traffic slow down in the following months.

Manufacturer share trends were included in February’s report as well. Nokia held the top spot worldwide with 29.4% of ad requests, in India with 66.7%, South Africa with 35.5% and Indonesia with 49.3%. In the United States, Motorola was the top device manufacturer with 35% of all ad requests and, in the UK, SonyEriccson claimed the top spot with 37% of all ad requests.

“AdMob is constantly working to better classify our network traffic to help our advertisers target,” said Jason Spero, VP Marketing at AdMob. “The February report has seen the addition of a few new data features that we hope will further empower advertisers and developers to leverage the mobile web.”

AdMob’s February report also included new data from AdMob’s top five country markets – the US, India, the UK, South Africa and Indonesia. Individual country statistics do not follow consistently with overall worldwide data. The BlackBerry remains the Smartphone with the highest traffic in the United States with 39% of US Smartphone traffic share. In India, the UK, South Africa and Indonesia, however, Nokia’s Smartphones become the clear leaders with 89%, 67%, 89% and 86% Smartphone traffic share respectively. The top devices in AdMob’s top five markets remained the same: the Motorola KRZR in the US, Nokia 6030 in India, Motorola v360 in South Africa, SonyEriccson K800i in the UK and the Nokia 660 in Indonesia.

Smartphone adoption is on the rise in China. This is the results from a new study by research firm In-Stat, which found that 10.46 million smartphones had shipped in China in 2006, which is double that from just a year prior. Entertainment functionality seems to be among owner’s preferences over productivity as well.

“The most important three factors respondents would consider when purchasing their next Smartphone are function, brand and price,” says Raymond Yan, In-Stat analyst. “Security, Internet access and synchronization with PCs are the top three problems that existing Smartphone users thought needed improvement.”

The study found that 97.9 percent of smartphone users in china would purchase another model when their current handset needs replacing, and more than half of the owners paid $25 or more a month for wireless service, which is 30 percent higher than non-smartphone users in China. And surprising, most smartphone users surveyed had no idea which operating system they were using on their handset, nor did they seem to care about when they made the purchase. The world isn’t such a different place after all.

In-Stat

Want a new homepage for your mobile handset or other portable device that makes it easier to get to the mobile Web sites you use the most? Hop over to FROG, where you can add direct access to mobile Web sites to your phone. This new homepage is free, and offers customizable links and colors. Users register online at GetFrog.com, and do the initial set up from a PC, selecting which sites will become the homepage. Then you send your “Frog” link to your phone, save the link as a favorite and you’re pretty much good to go.

There are six categories of links to choose from including news, sports, tools, shopping, entertainment and business. The number of sources is limited to those with a mobile Web site, and at this point the Frog only works with smartphones with full keyboards. But if this is your phone type of choice, then there is no reason to give the Frog a look

FROG