At a press luncheon today, Cingular revealed it would get its own version of the new RIM BlackBerry Pearl by the first quarter of next year. The Cingular Pearl is expected to be largely similar to the T-Mobile version except that it also will support push to talk. When asked why the carrier was taking so long to acquire the new BlackBerry, a Cingular exec said his company likes to test their devices rigorously. Meow.

Cingular also revealed it would offer a 3G smart phone by the end of 2006 and that it remains very bullish on its relationship with Windows Mobile. And concerning its HSDPA rollout, the carrier plans to have 87 cities and more than 100 million people covered by the end of the year.

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